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Biennial report, Public Schools of North Carolina

Biennial report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina to Governor ..., for the scholastic years ...

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BIENXIAL llEPOIiT
SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
XOETH CAEOLIXA
GOYER^ OR EGBERT B. GLE]^:N^
SCHOLASTIC YEARS 1906-1907 AND 1907-1908.
RALEIGH:
E. M. UzzELL & Co., State Printers and Binders.
1908.
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.
J. Y. JoYNER Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Allen J. Baewick Chief Clerli.
C. H. Mebane Special Clerlv for Loan Fund, etc.
Miss Hattie B. Arbington Stenographer.
John Duckett* Superintendent of Colored Normal Schools.
N. W. Walker State Inspector of Public High Schools.
STATE BOARD OF EXAMINERS.
J. T. Joyner Chairman ex officio.
A. J. Barwick Secretary.
F. L. Stevens West Raleigh.
N. W. Walker Chapel Hill.
John Graham Warrentou".
Z. V. Jtjdd Raleigh.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION.
R. B. Glenn Governor, President.
J. Y. JoYNER Superintendent of Public Instruction, Secretary.
F. D. Winston Lieutenant-Governor, Windsor, N. C.
J. Bryan Grimes Secretary of State.
B. R. Lacy State Treasurer.
B. F. Dixon State Auditor.
R. D. Gilmer Attorney-General.
*Deceased.
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
State of North Carolina,
Department of Public Instruction,
Raleigh, December 2, 1908.
To His ExceUency, Robert B. Glenn,
Governor of North Carolina.
Dear Sir:—According to section 4000 of tlie Revisal of 1905, I have the
honor to transmit my Biennial Report for the scholastic years 1906-'O7 and
1907-'0S.
In transmitting my last report during your administration, I beg to make
grateful acknowledgment of your loyal support and active co-operation, your
wise counsel and unselfish service, as Governor and as President of the State
Board of Education. ^r ,. , t ^ t/%attvtt^t-. Very truly yours, J. Y. JOYNER,
Superintendent of Puilic Instruction.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PART I.
Summary of Two-years Progress in Education.
Summary of Work to Be Done.
Recommendations.
Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
General Outline of Two-years Progress.
Statistical Summary of Two-years Progress.
PART II.
Public School Statistics, 1906-1907.
Public School Statistics, 1907-1908.
PART III.
Report of State Inspector of Public High Schools.
Report of Superintendent of Colored Normal Schools
and Croatan Normal School.
Report of State Forester.
Report of Loan Fund.
Report of Rural Libraries.
Report of Expenditures Slater Fund.
Report of Expenditures Peabody Fund.
Report of Local-tax Districts.
Circular Letters of State Superintendent.
Decisions of State Superintendent.
PART I.
SUMMARY OF TWO-YEARS PROGRESS.
SUMMARY OF WORK TO BE DONE.
RECOMMENDATIONS.
WORK TO BE DONE AND HOW TO DO IT.
GENERAL OUTLINE OF TWO-YEARS PROGRESS.
STATISTICAL SUMMARY OF TWO-YEARS PROGRESS.
X
SUMMARY OF TWO-YEARS PROGRESS IN EDUCATION.
The statistics compiled iu this office for the biennial period beginning July 1,
1900, and ending June 30, 1908, show continued educational progress.
During this biennial period the annual available school fund raised by State
and county taxation has been increased $288,377.72 ; the additional funds raised
by local taxation iu special-tax districts have been increased $78,415.34 in urban
districts and $123,549.09 in rural districts, making a total increase of $490,-
342.15 in the annual school fund raised by taxation, State, county and local. In
addition, there were raised during the period, for educational purposes, $551,-
096.22 by bonds and $198,875.09 by private donations.
During the period there has been an increase of 282 in the number of special-tax
school districts established by vote of the people, making the total number
of such districts in the State to date 719.
With this increase in the available funds for educational purposes there has
beerl during the period a corresponding increase in those things which can be
provided only by increased fimds. There has been an increase of $598,717 in
the value of rural school property and $593,541 iu the value of the city school
property, making a total increase of $1,192,258 in the total value of the public
school property of the State. There has been expended during the period
$1,008,004.71 for building, improving and equipping public schoolhouses ; 779 new
rural schoolhouses have been built, at an average cost of $685. There has been
an increase of 529 in the number of houses equipped with patent desks. The
average annual school term for the entire State has been lengthened 3.3 days.
The school terms in the newly established local-tax districts have been greatly
lengthened, in many instances doubled. The salaries of public school teachers
and county superintendents have been increased. There has been an increase
of 589 in the number of white teachers employed and 90 in the number of
colored teachers employed, and an increase of $19.80 in the average annual
salary of white teachers and $8.02 in the average annual salary of colored
teachers. There has been an increase of 189 in the number of white schools
employing two teachers or more. The average annual salary of county superin-tendents
has been increased $135.60. There has been an increase in the number
of county supex'intendents giving their entire time to the work of supervision,
and an increase in the time devoted to their work by nearly all other county
superintendents. More than one-half of the superintendents now devote their
entire time to their work.
During the period there has been an increase of 500 in the number of rural
school libraries, making the total number now 2.050. The work of publication
and distribution of educational literature iu the form of bulletins for teachers
and others for professional improvement and for the cultivation of public sen-timent
for education has been continued and increased. The work of grading,
organizing and classifying the rural schools has been continued with satisfac-tory
progress. The campaign for education, through bulletins, through the
press and by public addresses, has continued without cessation. The work of
the Woman's Association for the Betterment of Public Schoolhouses and
Grounds has been reorganized and enlarged and more closely connected with
State and county departments of education; without expense to the State a
field secretary has been employed to devote her entire time to this work.
8 Two-Yeaes Progress.
During the period there lias been a decrease of 24 iu the uumber of school
districts without schoolhouses, leaving only 379 districts without houses, a
decrease of 124 in the number of log houses, leaving only 306 log houses, and a
decrease of 25 in the number of small school districts by consolidation. There
has been an increase of 189 in the number of white schools and a decrease of
two iii the number of colored schools employing more than one teacher.
There has been an increase of $216,572 iu the loans for building and improv-ing
public schoolhouses. At the end of the period the loans aggregated $399,-
235.50. With loans made during the period 319 houses have been erected,
valued at $553,716.
The progress summarized above has been along the same lines as heretofore.
Every incomplete school system like ours, however, must gradually grow iu
new directions toward completion. During this period there have been some
distinctive additions to the system and some distinctive progress iu new direc-tions.
Public High Schools.—Under a special act of the General Assembly of 1907
appropriating $45,000 from the State Treasury to aid iu the establishment of
public high schools, 156 of these schools were established during the first
year in SI counties of the State—from one to four in each county—with an
available annual fund for high-school instruction iu each school ranging from
$500 to $1,500. In addition to the general supervision of the State and county
departments of education these high schools are Inspected and supervised by
a most competent State Inspector of High Schools, who devotes his entire time
to this work. During the first year 3,949 country boys and girls were enrolled
in the high-school grades of these schools, and 2,963 of these were iu average
daily attendance. The large majority of these would probably never have
received any high-school instruction, and the balance of them could not possi-bly
have obtained it at so small expense, so near at home and under such safe
and favorable environment. The first step in the direction of placing high-school
instruction, for preparation for life or for college, within easy reach of
the masses of country boys and girls, aud of supplying this necessary link in
the rural educational system of the State, has been taken at last. This, to my
mind, is the most distinctive aud significant educational progress of the period,
and perhaps of this decade. These schools have been established through the
co-operative efforts of the State, the county and the school district in which
they are located, the financial burden of their support being divided equally
among the three. If properly fostered, as suggested in another part of this
report, I have no doubt that they will be found a most effective means of
increasing interest in higher education, of elevating the average of intelligence
among the masses of our rural population and of greatly improving the scholar-ship
of the rank aud file of our rural public school teachers, who will be able
to secure in their own counties at least high-school training for their work.
Compulsory Attendance Act of 1907.—The General Assembly of 1907 also
passed a compulsory attendance law, under the provisions of which compul-sory
attendance for sixteen weeks annually of children between the ages of
eight and fourteen years can be ordered by the county board of education in
any school district, township or county in which a majority of the qualified
voters vote for it in an election ordered upon petition of a majority of such
voters. While the law needs some amendments, which we hope to secure at
the present term of the General Assembly, it is another important step in the
• Two-Yeaes Pkogeess. 9
direction of improving and completing our educational system. Its passage
by representatives of tlie people by a very large majority vote is indicative of
the growing recognition of education as an imperative public duty and a public
necessity, and of the growing demand for the obliteration of illiteracy and the
protection of childhood against it through the conservative intervention, if
necessary, of the strong arm of the law. Several cities and school districts
have voluntarily voted compulsory attendance. If the desired amendments to
the law can be secured at this term of the General Assembly, many more will
doubtless adopt it during the next two years.
Increased Facilities for Training Teachers. — Adequate provision for the
proper training of teachers for the public schools is an absolute necessity of
any modern system of public education. During this biennial period the State
has increased its provisions and strengthened its equipment for training teach-ers.
Under an act of the General Assembly of 1907 the East Carolina Teachers'
Training School has been established at Greenville, N. C. The State appro-priated
$15,000, the county of Pitt voted $50,000 in bonds and the city of Green-ville
voted an equal amount for the purchase of a site and the erection of suit-able
buildings for this school. One of the most beautiful sites in eastern
North Carolina has been secured, and a splendid plant, consisting of four
buildings, is now in course of erection, in accordance with the best plans of
modern school architecture, under the direction of most competent architects.
The school will be ready to open in the fall of 1909.
Valuable additions in the way of building and equipment and increased
appropriations for maintenance have been made to the State Normal and Indus-trial
College and to the other two State teachers' training schools, the Cul-lowhee
Normal and Industrial School and the Appalachian Training School.
The teacher training work in all of these institutions has been strengthened
and enlarged. At the State Normal and Industrial College, the Mclver Memo-rial
Building, one of the most beautiful and best equipped science buildings in
the State, and perhaps in the South, has just been completed at a cost of about
$60,000.
Important Decisions of Supreme Court.—During this biennial period two im-portant
decisions have been rendered by the Supreme Court, the beneficial
effects of which on the future growth and improvement of the public school
system can hardly be estimated.
In Collie v. Commissioners of Franklin County, the Court overruled Barks-dale
V. Commissioners of Samp.son County and all subsequent decisions based
upon that, and held that Article IX. section 3, of the Constitution, requiring
one or more public schools to be maintained in every school district at least
four months in every year and maliing the commissioners indictable for fail-ing
to comply with that requirement, was mandatory, and that, if the State
and county funds from all other sources were insufficient to meet this require-ment,
the county commissioners must levy a special tax on all property and
polls of the county sufficient to provide the necessary funds, as directed in
section 4112 of the public school law. This decision of the Supreme Court has
removed one of the chief obstacles to the advancement of education and the
improvement of the public schools in the smaller and weaker comities. It not
only assures at least a four-months school in every school district : but. as
will be readily seen, it opens the way for providing, by taxation, the necessi-ties
in the way of house and equipment, the proper sort of supervision and
the proper sort of teachers for the maintenance of the proper sort of public
10 Two-Years Peogeess. •
school for four months ; so that the county board of education, with the aid
of the board of county commissioners, can now have as good a school in every
district for at least four mouths each year as the people desire, deserve and
are able, without too burdensome a tax, to provide.
In Perry v. Commissioners of Franklin County, decided at the Fall Term,
1908, the Supreme Court held that a special poll tax levied in a special-tax
school district was neither a State nor a county capitation tax; was, there-fore,
not subject to the limitation of Article V, section 1, of the Constitution,
restricting the combined State and county capitation tax to .$2, and must be
levied and collected, as heretofore, in all special-tax school districts, irrespect-ive
of the amount of the combined State and county capitation tax in that
county. Under this decision there can be, therefore, no question hereafter of
the right to levy and collect special poll taxes as well as special property taxes
in all special-tax school districts. This removes another threatened obstacle
to educational progress in special-tax districts, arising from a misconstruction
of the opinion of the Supreme Court in Collie vs. Commissioners of Franklin
County.
Elsewhere in this report will be found a fuller and more detailed discussion,
a statistical summary and complete statistical tables of the educational work
of the period.
SUMMARY OF WORK TO BE DONE.
Having given a brief survey of tbe worlc done. I desire to present for your
thoughtful consideration a brief summary of some of the important worli to be
done for the improvement of the public schools and the development of the sys-tem
of public education in this State. Iloiieful as is the outlook, encouraging
as has been the progress of the past decade, it must still be apparent to any
thoughtful, observant, interested student of educational conditions in North
Carolina that this great work is scarcely more than well begun, that the sys-tem
is still sadly inadequate to the stupendous task of placing within reach
of all the children of the State such educational opportunities as the age de-mands,
and as most of our sister States and all progressive foreign lands have
already placed within the reach of all thei-r children. A glorious work still lies
before us.
Many new and comfortable schoolhouses are still to be built to take the
place of old, uncomfortable ones ; many more are to be repaired, enlarged and
equipped" and made comfortable and - respectable ; school grounds are to be
beautified ; unnecessary little school districts are to be abolished ; many more
schools with two or more teachers, prepared to give more thorough and more
advanced instruction, must be established ; as soon as the condition of the
roads and the ability of the people will justify it, transportation of children
in the rural districts to larger and better equipped central schools must be
provided. The work of unifying and systematizing the Course of study and
bringing all parts of the public school system into harmonious co-operation
must be carried to conqtletion.
For the improvement of the rank and file of the public school teachers now
engaged in the work and unable to quit to put themselves into long and expen-sive
training for doing better work, a better system of county institutes with
advanced courses of study and trained, conductors, a complete system of county
high schools and of summer schools with courses of study for the public school
teachers at the various State institutions and elsewhere must be provided.
For the preparation of young men and young women for the profession of
teaching and for the elevation of the work to its proper plane of a profession,
the present provisions for teacher training must be fostered and enlarged ; a
properly correlated system of teacher-training schools, beginning with the
county high school and the county teachers' institute, including normal schools
in different sections of the State, and culminating in teachers' colleges for
men and women, must be provided.
County supervision must be strengthened and improved, and the salaries of
county superintendents increased until every county shall have a competent
superintendent, of professional training and practical experience, devoting his
entire time to his work.
Some means must be found and enforced for overcoming nonattendance.
irregularity of attendance and illiteracy by bringing into the school and keep-ing
them there the thousands of children of school age that are never enrolled
or that are enrolled for only a few days each year, and are, therefore, on the
straight road to illiteracy.
12 Work to Be Done.
The public high schools established by the co-operative efforts of State,
county and district must be increased in number until they cover every county.
and enlarged and improved in character until they furnish adequate provision
for the high-school instruction of all the children of the people desiring such
instruction and capable of receiving it, and give to the country children a
chance to get at home preparation for college or better preparation for life,
through a fuller development of their faculties and an increase in their intelli-gence,
power and earning capacity.
In connection with these public high schools, or in separate schools, indus-trial
and agricultural training must be provided for the masses of the children
of a people 82 per cent, of whom are rural and agricultural. In these, courses
of study and training will be provided specially adapted to preparing the thou-sands
of children whose education wall be limited to that obtained in these
schools for doing better the work that needs to be done and that they must do
on farm, in shop and factory, and for living more usefully and more happily the
life that they must live.
Salaries of good teachers must be increased until they are somewhat com-mensurate
with the dignity and importance of the teacher's work, with the
salaries and wages of other professions and other callings, and are sufficient
to command men and women of first-class ability and to justify them in the
investment of sufficient time and money to get first-class training, scholastic
and professional, for their difficult and delicate work.
Means must be devised and enforced for getting more money for all this
needful work, by getting the taxable property on the tax books, securing a
uniform, just and reasonable assessment of it, and supplementing the general
State taxation for school purposes with special State appropriations and
special county, township and district taxation.
Elsewhere in this report will be found a fuller and more detailed discussion
of this work, of the necessity for it, the reasons for doing it, and some sugges-tions
of ways and means of doing it.
RECOMMENDATIONS.
1\) aid ill the accomplisliiuent of the work here outlinerl for the progress
and development of the public school system, I beg to make the following
recommendations
:
1. That there shall be little interference with the present school law, which
I believe to be the best school law that the State has ever had. The people
and the school officers are beginning to become acquainted with the law and
to be familiar with its workings. Some additions seem to be necessary, but
there should be few changes and no radical changes. It will be wise to seek
to continue to progress along the lines already marked out by the present
school law and to begin to have a permanent educational policy.
2. That section 4167 of the Public School Law be so amended as to require
the appropriation of at least two hundred dollars biennially by each county
for conducting one or more teachers' institutes and summer schools in that
county. (See following pages of this report under heading "Improvement of
County Institutes and Summer Schools.")
3. That the special appropriation of $200,000 for the public schools be con-tinued,
because, at present, the special tax that would be required in many
counties to provide even a four-months school, without the aid of this appro-priation
would be so heavy as to be burdensome, amounting in some of the
weaker counties to as much as thirty cents on the hundred dollars valuation
of property and ninety cents on the poll, which, in addition to the eighteen
cents school tax required by the State to be levied, would make a total school
tax of forty-eight cents on the hundred dollars valuation of property ; and the
total school tax in the special-tax districts in these counties would increase
this from ten to thirty cents on the hundred dollars valuation of property.
The State can well afCord to aid .in strengthening and building up the weak
places of the State, as it can be no stronger than its weakest place.
4. That the law regarding the apportionment of the second hundred jthou-sand
dollars be so amended as to require each county receiving aid from this
to raise as much by special tax on all its property and polls for a four-months
school in every district as it received from the second hundred thousand dol-lars
; and that the balance of this second hundred thousand dollars be dis-tributed
by the State Board of Education in such a manner as to equalize, as
nearly as may be, the per capita apportionment in the various counties and
the length of the school term. This plan of distribution, it seems to me. will
be more equitable and will be based upon the principle of requiring the coun-ties
to help themselves at least as much as the State helps them.
5. That section 4119 of the Public School Law be so amended as to make the
term of office of the members of the County Board of Education six years, so
arranged that the term of one member of the board shall expire every two
years. By retaining a majority of old members on the board each year the
possibility of a radical change in the educational policy of the county every
two years will be prevented, and the danger of mistakes from the adminis-tration
of school affairs by new and inexperienced men will be avoidefl. Under
this plan at least two of the three memliers of the County Board of Education,
'l4 Eecommendations.
unless they resign, will have had at all times not less than four years' expe-rience
in the management of the public schools. Under the present plan it
frequently happens that an entirely new board, without any experience or any
acquaintance with the educational conditions and needs of the county, is ap-pointed
every two years. Logically, the term of office of at least a majority
of the members of the County Board of Education should be the same as that
of the State Superintendent and the State Board of Education. The advan-tages
of this change will be apparent as a business proposition to any man of
business experience. The results of the work and plans of the County Board
of Education and County Superintendent cannot be fairly tested in less than
four years.
6. That the General Assembly increase the annual appropriation to aid and
encourage high-school instruction $5,000 for the establishment of public high
schools in the counties that have none now.
7. That the present compulsory attendance law be so amended as to place
it in the discretion of the County Board of Education to order compulsory
attendance for any public school upon petition of a majority of the patrons of
that school, and to order it without petition in districts in which the per cent,
of children of school age in daily attendance upon the public school or some
other school is less than thirty-five per cent.
8. That the General Assembly provide for the establishment of a farm school,
in accordance with the general plan outlined in this report, under the heading,
"Farm-life Schools."
9. That the law regarding the apportionment of the first $100,000 by the
State Board of Education be so amended as to authorize that board to deduct
therefrom annually before apportioning it not to exceed $1,200 for salary and
expenses of an inspector and director of the teacher-training work of the State.
(See reasons for this under heading "Improvement of County Institutes.")
10. That the rural-library law be so amended as to allow the unused balance
of the biennial appropriation of $2,500 for supplementary libraries at the end
of each biennial period to be available for the establishment of additional rural
libraries upon the conditions prescribed for the establishment of these in this
law.
WORK TO BE DONE AND HOW TO DO IT.
Notwitbstaiidiug the encouraging progress along all former lines and the
encouraging beginning along new lines of educational work during the past two
years, as revealed bj' the official reports, the work to be done and the ways and
means of doing it have not been materially changed since my preceding report.
As I discussed most of these subjects somewhat fully and to the best of my
ability in that report, basing my discussion and suggestions on the most careful
study of our educational conditions that 1 have been able to make, I have
deemed it wisest to bring forward, with some changes and additions, parts of
my previous biennial report. This is the work to be done, as I see it; these
are the ways and means of doing it, as I see them. I can do no better than to
cry aloud and spare not until the General Assembly and the people hear and
heed these suggestions or in their wisdom find and adopt some better ways of
doing this needed work.
. Public High Schools.—Every child has the right to have the chance to de-velop
to the fullest every faculty that God has endowed him with. It is to the
highest interest of the State to place within the reach of every child this chance.
By the evidence of the experience of all civilized lauds of the past and the pres-ent,
the study of the higher branches is necessary for the fullest development of
these faculties. I'nless provided in the public schools, instruction in these can-not
be placed within reach of nine-tenths of the children of North Carolina. If
the great masses of our people are to be limited in their education to the ele-mentary
branches only, we cannot hope for any material improvement in their
intelligence and power and any material increase in their earning capacity.
This State cannot expect to compete successfully with those States that have
provided such instruction in their public schools for the highest and fullest
development of all the powers of all their people.
"The old idea that instruction in the public schools must be confined to the
rudimentary branches only, or the three R's, as they were called, was born of
the old false notion that the public schools were a public charity. This notion
put a badge of poverty upon the public-school system that was for many years
the chief obstacle to the progress and development of public education in North
Carolina. The notion still lingers in the minds of a few that at heart do not
believe in the power and the rights of the many. It has no place in a real
democracy. It must give place to that truer idea, accepted now in all pro-gressive
States and lands, that public education is the highest governmental
function—in fact, the chief concern of a good government. This was the con-ception
of our wise old forefathers when they declared in their Constitution
that 'Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government
and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall for-ever
be encouraged,' and when they wrote into their Bill of Rights 'The people
have a right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty of the State to
guard and maintain that right.'
"No man in this age will dare maintain that instruction in the mere rudi-ments
of learning can be called an education or that the people have been
given the right to an education when instruction in these branches only has
been placed within their reach. Under this broader democratic conception of
16 WoEK TO Be Done and How to Do It.
public education and its function tlie obligation of the government to the
poorest is as binding as its obligation to the richest. The right of the poorest
to the opportunity of the fullest development is as inalienable as the right of
the richest. Good government and the happiness of mankind are as dependent'
upon the development of the fullest powers of the poorest as upon the develojv
ment of the fullest powers of the richest. Where the Creator has hidden the
greatest powers no man can know till all have been given the fullest oppor-tunity
to develop all that is in them. Every taxpayer, rich or poor, has an
equal right to have an equal chance for the fullest development of his children
in a public school with the fullest course of instruction that the State in the
discharge of its governmental function is able to provide.
"Public high schools constitute a part of every modern progressive system of
public education. If our system of public schools is to take rank with the mod-ern,
progressive systems of other States and other lands, to meet the modern
demands for education and supply to rich and poor alike equal educational
opportunity, instruction in these higher branches, whereby preparation for col-lege
or for life may be placed within the easy reach of all, must find a fixed and
definite place in the system."
Through the act of the General Assembly of 1907 appropriating $45,000 from
the State Treasury to aid in the establishment of public high schools loG public
high schools in SI counties of the State were established the first year, and
applications for the establishment of many others had to be refused on account
of the insufficiency of the State appropriation. A full report of these schools,
by Prof. N. W. Walker, State Inspector of Public High Schools, is published
elsewhere in this report. I commend it to your careful attention.
Under the law and the rules adopted by the State Board of Education, which
are printed elsewhere in this report, not more than four of these schools can
be established in any one county. No public high school can be established
except in connection with a public school having at least two other teachers in
the elementary and intermediate grades, and the entire time of at least one
teacher must be devoted to the high-school grades. No public high school can
be established in a town of more than twelve hundred inhabitants.
Each district in which a public high school is established is required to dupli-cate
by special taxation or subscription the amount apportioned to the school
from the State appropriation ; and each county, unless the county school fund
thereof is insufficient to provide a four-months school without aid from the
second $100,000, is required to apportion to each public high school out of the
county fund an amount equal to that apportioned to it out of the State appro-priation.
The minimum sum that can be apportioned annually from the State
appropriation for the establishment and maintenance of any public high school
is $250 and the maximum sum $500. The total sum annually available for any
public high school established under this act ranges, therefore, from $500 to
$1,500. The high-school funds can be used only for the payment of salaries of
the high-school teachers and the necessary incidental expenses of the high-school
grades.
No teacher can be employed to teach or can draw salary for teaching any
subjects in any public high school who does not hold a high-school teacher's
certificate covering at least all subjects taught by said teacher in said public
high school, issued by the State Board of Examiners, of which the State Super-intendent
is ex officio chairman. The course of study is prescribed by the State
Superintendent of Public Instruction.
AVoKK TO Be Doxe and How to Do It. 17
As indicative of the need and demand for these schools I beg to call your
attention to the fact that there were applications for many more such schools
than could be established with the appropriation, and that the number of such
applications would have been greatly increased had it not been understood that
the appropriation was already exhausted. As a further striking indication of
the need for them and of the desire among the masses of the country people for
higher instruction, and of their willingness and determination to avail them-selves
of the opportunities placed within their reach for such instruction, I beg
to call your attention to these significant facts, taken from the official reports
of these schools, all of which are in country districts or small towns of less
than twelve hundred people : 3.949 country boys and girls were enrolled in the
high-school grades of these schools during the first j'ear, and of these 2,9G3 were
in average daily attendance ; 2,721 were eni'olled in the eighth grade, or the first
year's work of the high school ; 861 in the ninth grade, or the second year's
work of the high school ; 297 in the tenth grade, or the third year's work of the
high school; 70 in the eleventh grade, or the fourth year's work of the high
school.
Do not the large enrollment and the remarkable average daily attendance of
more than 7.j per cent, of the enrollment in these high schools during the first
year indicate almost a pathetic eagerness of the country boys and girls for
high-school instruction, and a commendable willingness on the part of their
parents to make the sacrifices necessary to give their children a chance to
avail themselves of the opportunities to get it? Do not the large enrollment
in the first year's grade of the high school and the rapidly decreasing enroll-ment
in the higher grades until it is reduced to a mere handful in the highest
grade indicate the pathetic, almost tragic lack of facilities for high-school
instruction in the rural districts heretofore?
Nearly two-thirds of all the boys and girls enrolled in these high schools had
to be enrolled in the lowest grades—were not prepared for any higher grade,
most probably for the. lack of any opportunity heretofore for the study of any
branches beyond the mere elementary branches in public or private schools
within their reach. Is it not more than probable that perhaps nine-tenths of
all these boys and girls enrolled in all the grades of these high schools would
never have had an opportunity for any higher instruction or better prepara-tion
through higher instruction for service and citizenship had not these public
high schools been established within their reach and means?
The State and county cannot afford to ignore this demand and need. An
adequate system of public high schools will be found to be a part of every
modern system of public education in all progressive cities and States in this
country and in all the most progressive and prosperous countries of the world.
It is a need and demand of the age. By no other means than by the public
high school can high-school instrjaction be placed within the reach of the chil-dren
of the many. By no other means than by the rural public high school
can it be placed within the reach of the great majority of the country boys
and girls.
The private high school cannot meet this demand, because the tuition and
other necessary charges for its maintenance place it beyond the means of the
majority of the country boys and girls, and because the number of country
parents who are able to bear these necessary expenses of instruction in private
high schools for their children is far too small to maintain enough of these
18 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
private high schools to be within reasonable reach of more than a very small
minority of the country boys and girls. No one church is able to support
enough of these high schools to place high-school instruction within reasonable
reach or within the financial ability of more than a mere handful of boys and
girls in the rural districts.
The church high school could hardly hope for the patronage of more than the
children of the families accepting its tenets or inclined to its doctrines. For a
complete system of high schools, therefore, that would reach all the children,
it would seem to be necessary for each denomination to maintain a system of
high schools in every county and to have as many systems of high schools in
each county as there are denominations in that county. The impracticability
and expensiveness of meeting adequately the demand for high-school instruc-tion
among the masses of the people, especially in the rural districts, by private
high schools or by church high schools must be apparent, therefore, to any
thoughtful student of rural conditions.
The task of placing high-school instruction within reasonable reach of all the
children of all the people, irrespective of creed or condition, is too great and
too complicated, it seems to me, ever to be successfully performed by church,
private enterprise or philanthropy. If performed at all, it seems to me, it
must be by all the people supporting by uniform taxation a system of public
high schools of sufficient number to be within the reasonable reach of all the
children of every county and community, with doors wide open to the children
of the poor and the children of the rich, irrespective of creed or condition,
affording equality of educational opportuuitj^ to all the children of a republic,
of which equality of opportunity is a basic principle.
The church high school and the private high school will still find a place and
an important work in our educational system, but they can never take the place
or do the work of the public high school for the masses of the people. There
will always be those among us who will prefer the church or private high
school, and who will be able to indulge this preference, but the main depend-ence
of the many for higher education must still be the public high school, sup-ported
by the taxes of all the people, belonging to all the people, within reach
of all the people. God speed the work of the church and the private high
school in this common battle against ignorance and illiteracy. There is work
enough for all to do ; but surely, in a republic like ours, one of the cardinal
principles of which is and must ever be the greatest good to the greatest num-ber,
friends of the church high school and of the private high school will never
undertake to say that all the people must get out of the way of a few of the
people, and that the many public high schools, supported by all the people for
the benefit of all the children, must get out of the way for a few private and
church high schools that can at best hope to reach but a few of the children of
the people.
Future Development of Public High Schools.—There are now from one to
four public high schools in each of eighty-one counties of the State. There
are, therefore, seventeen counties in which no public high schools have yet
been established. As the special annual State appropriation of $45,000 for
these public high schools has been exhausted, I have recommended an increased
appropriation of $5,000 to be used for establishing public high schools in these
seventeen counties. For the proper maintenance and development of these
high schools more money will, of course, be required. On account of the lack
of funds in the State Treasury, the terrible disaster by the floods to the crops
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 19
in a large section of tlie State, and ttie general financial depression, from wliich,
I trust, the State will soon recover, I have deemed it- wisest to ask only for
sufficient increase of the State appropriation to provide for schools in the few
counties that have none now. This appropriation is asked as a matter of jus-tice
to those counties, in order to give them an opportunity to place themselves
upon an equal footing in respect to public high schools with the other counties.
It has seemed to me also that it might perhaps be wisest to wait two years
before asking the State to put any more money into the schools already estab-lished.
By the end of that period we ought to be able to eliminate the high
schools that have not established their right to live by the attendance, the
results obtained and the interest manifested by the people, and to ascertain
where any additional appropriation may be most needed and most wisely and
economically used.
It is our hope to be able within the next two years to select the best high
school in each county, taking into consideration the location, the accessibility,
the environment, etc., and develop this into a real flrst-class county high school,
doing thorough high-school work for four full years. Around this school should
be built a dormitory and a teachers' home. A part of the State Loan Fund
could be used to aid in building the dormitory and tlie teachers' home. The
dormitory, properly conducted, would afford an opportunity for the boys and
girls from all parts of the county to board at actual cost. Many of these could
return to their homes Friday evening, coming back Monday morning. Many of
them who do not have the money to spare to pay their board would probably
be able to bring such provisions as are raised on the farm and have them
credited on their board at the market price. The principal's home would make
it possible to secure a better principal and keep him probably for years, thereby
giving more permanency to the school and more continuity to the work, maliing
a citizen of the teacher and enabling him and his family to become potent fac-tors
in the permanent life of the community, contributing no small part to
uplifting it, morally and intellectually, by their influence. A small room rent
could be charged each student, that would probably afCord sufficient income to
repay the annual installments on the loan for the dormitory. The balance of
the cost of the dormitory, and in some instances all the cost of the dormitory,
could probably be raised easily by private subscription in the community and
county, if the raising of it should be made a condition precedent to the perma-nent
location of such a county high school.
It is my hope to be able to secure during the next two years the development
of a number of these county high schools in the most favorable counties,
equipped with dormitories and teachers' homes, and demonstrate the practi-cability,
the success and the value of them. Having done this, it will be easy
to secure their establishment and development in other counties. The increased
State appropriation which I shall recommend and hope to secure two years
hence should, in my opinion, be used for the development of these central
county high schools, so that we can gradually develop in every county of the
State at least one first-class county high school with dormitory and teachers'
home. Then the other high schools in different sections of the county should
be correlated with this central school, and the bourse of study in these should
be limited probably to not more than two years of high-school work, requiring
all students desiring to pursue the last two years of the fourryears course to
attend the central county high school, which will be fully equipped in all
respects for thorough high-school work.
20 WoEK TO Be Doxe and How to Do It.
These central county high schools, as they grow and develop, should become
also the nuclei for successful Industrial and agricultural training. Parallel
courses of study for the last two years might be arranged, one course oii'ering
thorough preparation for college to the small number of students desiring such
preparation, and the other offering practical industrial and agricultural train-ing
for the large number whose education will end with the high school. The
dormitory would afford a splendid equipment for practice work for the girls in
cooking, domestic science, household economics, etc. ; while the boys, during the
last two years, could have training in agricultural subjects that will fit them
for more intelligent and profitable farming. The practical side of this work
could be supplied by acquiring by purchase or lease a small farm in connection
with the high school. In any event, if it should not seem wisest in the growth
and development of these schools to undertake such a double course of study,
I believe that these central county high schools would in most instances be
found the best and most economical location for county schools of farming and
domestic training, even if such schools should be separate. The two schools
could be most economically and successfully conducted in close proximity to
each other, so as to utilize the same faculty for those cultural subjects that
would be required by both classes of students during most of the first two
years, and some of which would be the same during the last two years of the
high-school course.
All this development must, of course, be a gradual and perhaps a somewhat
slow growth. It is best that it should be. We must be content with the day
of small things. We cannot far outrun the desire, demand and ability of the
people. Our schools must have tlieir roots in the life and needs of the people
and grow out of these. They must not be lifted at once so high above these
that their roots cannot touch them and that the people will be unable to reach
up to them. They must connect with the life and conditions as they now are,
and grow upward slowly, changing these gradually and lifting them upward
with them as they grow.
Thoroughness in Essentials.—The foundation of all education is. of coui'se.
a mastery of the rudiments of knowledge—the elementary branches of reading,
writing, arithmetic and spelling. A knowledge of these and the training and
development which come from the effort necessary for the acquisition of such
knowledge are absolutely essential for every human being. It is folly to talk
about higher education or special training along any line for any useful sphere
of life or work until the children have secured at least this much instruction.
According to the United States Census of 1900, 19.5 per cent, of the white popu-lation
and 47.5 per cent, of the colored population over ten years of age in
North Carolina could not read and write. While I have no doubt that we have
greatly reduced this per cent, of illiteracy during the past eight years, it is still
painfully true that there is yet a large number of illiterates among ws and a
large number of children on the straight road to illiteracy.
A large majority of our country schools are still one-teacher schools. The
average length of our rural school term is still only 87.1 days. Our chief atten-tion
should, therefore, be given to doing thoroughly this foundation work and
making adequate provision for it. If the foundation be not well laid first, the
entire educational structure must fall to pieces.
The law now wisely forbids the teaching of any high-school subjects in any
school having only one teacher. It requires, however, the teaching of thirteen
subjects in these one-teacher schools. It is absolutely impossible for one
WoEK TO Be Done and How to Do It. 21
teacher, with as mauy children as are to be found in the average rural school in
seven grades, to do thorough work in so many subjects. It seems to me that
the number of required subjects should be reduced, and that the teacher in
every one-teacher school should be required to devote more time—in fact, most
of the time—to teaching thoroughly these fundamental essentials of reading,
writing, arithmetic and spelling. It is folly to attempt the impossible. In my
opinion, at least the first four years of the elementary school with only one
teacher should be devoted almost exclusively to these four subjects, sandwich-ing
in just enough of geography, mainly in the form of nature study, talks on
everyday hj'giene, etc., to give a little variety to the course and to furnish some
foundation for a little more extensive work in these and kindred subjects later.
There is more educational value, more acquisition of power and of correct
intellectual habits in a thorough mastery of a few subjects than in a super-ficial
knowledge, a mere smattering, of mauy. The one lays the foundation for
real culture; the other lays the foundation for nothing better than veneering.
I am satisfied that there is great need for a substantial reform along this line
in the required course of study in our elementary schools. The sensible teach-ers
in the one-teacher schools are not attempting to teach this multiplicity of
required subjects, and those who are attempting to teach all of these are failing
to teach any as they should be taught. The law ought not to require a vain and
foolish thing.
Industrial and Agricultural Education.—"Every complete educational system
must make provision also for that training in the school which will give fitness
for the more skillful performance of the multitudinous tasks of the practical
work of the world, the pursuit of which is the inevitable lot of the many, for
that training which will connect the life and instruction of the school more
closely with the life that they must lead, which will better prepare them for
usefulness and happiness in the varied spheres in which they must move. All
these spheres are necessary to the well-being of a complex life like ours. The
Creator, who has ordained all spheres of useful action, has not endowed all with
the same faculties or fitted all for the same sphere of action.
" 'We are all but parts of one stupendous whole.
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.'
"Every wise system of education, therefore, must, beyond a certain point of
educational development, recognize natural differences of endowment and fol-low
to some extent the lines of natural adaptation and tastes, thus co-operating
with Nature and God. The education that turns a life into unnatural channels
and into the pursuit of the unattainable fills that life with discontent and
dooms it to inevitable failure and tragedy. In recognition of these established
laws of Nature and life, manual training and industrial education are begin-ning
to find a fixed and permanent place in systems of modern education.
They have already been given a place in some of the higher institutions of
our public-school system—in the A. and M. College for the white race at
Raleigh, in the State Normal and Industrial College for Women at Greensboro,
and in the A. and M. College for the Colored Race at Greensboro. Under the
new supervision industrial training will be emphasized in the State Colored
Normal Schools at Winston, Fayetteville and Elizabeth City. Some of the city
graded schools, notably those of Durham, Asheville, Wilmington, Winston,
Greensboro and Charlotte, have introduced manual training and industrial
education.
22 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
"This sort of education, liowever, must come as a growth, a development of
a general school system that provides first for the intellectual mastery of those
branches that are recognized as essential for intelligent citizenship and work-manship
everywhere. It must be remembered that the first essential difference
between skilled labor and unskilled labor is a difference of intelligence as well
as of special training ; that a skilled farmer must be first of all a thinking man
on the farm ; a skilled mechanic, a thinking man in the shop ; that a skilled
hand is but a hand with brains put into it and finding expression through it
;
that without brains put into it a man's hand is no more than a monkey's paw
that without brains applied to it a man's labor is on the same dead level with
the labor of the dull horse and the plodding ox ; that a man with a trained
hand and nothing more is a mere machine, a mere hand. The end of education
is first to make a man, not a machine.
"It will be well to remember, also, that industrial education is the most
expensive sort of education, on account of the equipment necessary for it and
the character of the teachers required for it. Teachers prepared for successful
instruction in this sort of education must, of course, be in some sense special-ists
in their line, and always command good salaries. For the majority of the
public schools of the State, therefore, with one-room schoolhouses without spe-cial
equipment and with one teacher without special training, on an average
salary of $32.24 per month, with barely money enough for a four-months term
and for instruction in the common-school branches, with more daily recitations
already than can be successfully conducted, industrial education and technical
training are at present impracticable.
"A study of the history of this sort of education will show that it has come
as a later development, after ample provision had been made for thorough
instruction in the lower and in the higher branches of study, in those schools
that were provided with school funds sufficient for instruction in the ordinary
school studies, for the expensive equipment and for the teachers trained espe-cially
for industrial and technical education. In fact, I think it will be found
that such education has been provided first in the towns and cities and great
centers of wealth and population or in institutions generously supported by
large State appropriations or by large endowments. To undertake such educa-tion
in the ordinary rural schools of the State in their present condition, with
their present equipment and with the meager funds available for them, would
result in burlesque and failure, and would, in my opinion, set back for a gen-eration
or two this important work.
"We might, however, begin to develop our public-school system in that direc-tion
in those communities and counties where the conditions are favorable and
the funds sufiicient, and we might begin to devise ways and means for providing
the necessary funds and making the conditions favorable in other communities.
I trust that means may soon be found for the establishment in every county of
at least one or more schools for industrial and agricultural training. This will
require more money, however, than is now available for public schools, and will
probably require both county and State appropriations. In the meantime it is
proper and wise to cultivate public sentiment for this sort of education, and to
provide for it as rapidly as we shall find ways and means for doing so. In
the meantime, also, we can continue to give in all our public schools elementary
instruction in agriculture and to encourage nature study in the schools. An
admirable little text-book on agriculture has been adopted for use in public
schools, and in the course of study sent out simple nature study has been pro-vided
in every grade."
WoKK TO Be Done and How to Do It. 23
Farm-Life Schools.—-More than eiglit-teuths of our population, according to
the last census, still live on the farms. I hope the day will neveivcome in the
history of the South when a majority of our people will cease to live in the
country. In great crises in the history of every nation the hope, the strength,
the salvation have generally been found in its country people. Its quietude and
peace, affording opportunity for meditation and reflection, for daily communion
with God's great teacher, Nature, giving time for great thoughts and divine
emotions to take deep and everlasting root in human hearts and human charac-ter,
its freedom from mad excitement, from artificiality, from the manifold
temptations of gilded vice, from the effeminating influences of luxury and ex-cessive
wealth, make the country the ideal place for the development of the
strongest type of men and women, and help, I think, to explain the historical
fact that the country always has been the greatest nursery of great men and
women. The old myth of Anti^us representing the earth giant as unconquer-able
so long as the contact between him and his mother earth was not broken
was not all a myth. There was a great truth at the bottom of it, which we in
modern times would do well to heed.
We cannot hope, however, for the more ambitious and aspiring of our country
people to continue to live in the country unless their children can be given an
equal chance for culture and training in the country schools, and unless they
can be taught to make farming more profitable and farm life more attractive
by bringing into it such modern conveniences of life as increased prosperity
alone can command, and enriching it with the higher intellectual and social
pleasures that sweeten, soften, refine and adorn life, impossible without intelli-gence
and intellectual culture. If we would keep the best of the country people
in the country we must find a way to bring the best of modern civilization into
the country without forcing the country people to leave the country to get it.
We must find a way to shape our education for country boys and girls more
toward fitting them for making life on the farm at least as profitable, as pleas-ant,
as attractive and as livable as life anywhere else.
Of course, the first aim of all education is to make a man and an intelligent
citizen. The successful farmer must first of all be- a thinking man, able to
apply his intelligence and training to his business, to mix his brains with his
soil. Our rural schools, therefore, must first of all provide instruction in such
elementary and secondary subjects as the experience of the ages has declared
essential and best for intellectual and moral mastery. Beyond the point of the
acquisition of these essentials, however, I believe it safe and wise to shape the
course of study for the country boys and girls more in the direction of special
eparation for farm life.
With our limited means we have been so busy striving to provide sufficient
elementary and secondary schools to place the essentials of education in reach
of all that we have had neither the time nor the money to give serious atten-tion
to the other problem. I believe, however, that it is time now for us to
face this problem and begin to seek to solve it successfully. Our Agricultural
and Mechanical College and our State Department of Agriculture should be our
chief helpers in working out this problem. I have ventured to make some sug-gestions
about this elsewhere in this report in discussing the future develop-ment
of the public high schools. We should study carefully, also, what has
been done by others, and profit by their successful experience.
From the information that I have been able to get, it seems to me that Wis-consin
has been more successful than any other State in dealing with this
A
24 WoEK TO Be Done axb How to Do It.
problem of providing practical schools at moderate expense for training coun-try
boys and, girls for country life. Years ago they began with one such school
in a small way, with plain and inexpensive buildings and equipment, conducted
at an annual expense of only a few thousand dollars. Fortunately this school
was under the direction of practical, trained teachers instead of faddish spe-cialists.
It took hold of life and conditions in the country as they existed,
busied itself with the practical, everyday problems and tasks of farm life and
work and with finding practical and more profitable ways of doing those. It
had to win its way slowly. The farmers of the county in which it was located
had to be convinced of its value and necessity by results obtained, by the prac-tical
benefits they observed and derived from its work. By keeping in close
touch with them and gathering as many of them as possible about the school
once or twice a year, they were made to feel that it was their school in deed
and in truth, and their hearty co-operation was at last secured. The school
was kept in close touch with the Agricultural and Mechanical College of the
University of Wisconsin and under the general direction of the members of its
faculty.
As the farmers of the county in which it was located saw and felt the
uplifting and transforming power of its work in their homes and on their
farms, they rallied enthusiastically to its support, and it became their pride.
Farmers of other counties began to take notice of its successful work, and
some of the more intelligent of them began to demand a similar school and to
work for it. There are now, I believe, seven of these schools in different sec-tions
of the State of Wisconsin, all closely correlated with the Agricultural and
Mechanical College. They form the most effective means for disseminating
among the masses of the people a knowledge of farming and farm life, that I
am reliably informed has been worth already millions of dollars in increased
products of the farms and in the increased value of those products on account
of their improved quality. What they have been worth in the transformation
of the life in the farm homes, through the knowledge and training given to
hundreds of country girls in these schools, cannot be measured in paltry
dollars.
T believe that the time is ripe for the establishment of at least one such
school in this State—that we have reached, in fact, that point in our educa-tional
development where the establishment of such a school is a necessity for
our guidance in successfully shaping the growth of our educational system in
this direction. In the future we must have in our system real rural schools
and not mere city schools in the country—schools the training in which will
grow more out of rural life, tend more toward rural life and fit better for rural
life.
One such school, in my opinion, is enough at present. It should be located
near our Agricultural and Mechanical College, so as to have the benefit of the
supervision of its trained men and specialists, but it should be in charge, not
of a mere specialist, but of an all-round, intelligent man of special training,
common sense and practical experience and acquaintance with the present
needs and conditions of farm life in the State. All of its equipment at first
should be simple and comparatively inexpensive, such as any one of fifty coun-ties
of the State might provide, and such as the average farmer would not
feel to be entirely out of his reach and entirely out of touch with the present
conditions of life on the farm. Such a school shouV reach down to the level
AVoEK TO Be Done and How to Do It. 25
of present rural life, aud not reach up beyond its possibilities. I believe that
the plant for such a school could be provided for $10,000 or $15,000, and that it
could be maintained at an annual expense of $4,000 or $5,000.
I feel sure that the Farmers' Alliance, the farmers' unions and the other
farmers' organizations of the State, the Agricultural and Mechanical College
and the State Department of Agriculture would heartily co-operate in estab-lishing
such a school, in raising the funds necessary to secure the plant and in
making its work successful.
Illiteracy and Nonattendance and How to Overcome Them — Compulsory
Attendance.—With 175,325 native white illiterates over ten years of age, or
lO.G per cent., according to the United States Census of 1900 ; with 54,208, or
19 per cent., native white illiterates of voting age ; with 45,632 native white
illiterates between ten and nineteen years of age, with only 69.5 per cent, of
the white children between the-ages-of—six_and twenty-one enrolled in the
public'schools and only 43 per cent, of them in regular daily attendance, with
about 137,340 white children between these ages uuenrolled in the public
schools, with North Carolina still standing in the United States Census of
1900 next to the last in the column of white illiteracy, the urgent need of
finding and enforcing some means of changing as rapidlj' as possible these
appalling conditions must be. apparent to every thoughtful, patriotic sou of
the State.* Two means suggest themselves
:
1. Attraction and persuasion. .
2. Compulsory attendance.
Attraction and Persuasion.—"Much has been done, much more can be done,
to increase attendance through the attractive power of better houses and
grounds, better teachers, and longer terms. An attractive schoolhouse and
a good teacher in every district, making a school commanding by its work
public confidence, respect and pride, would do much to overcome nonattend-ance.
The attractive power of improved schools and equipment to increase
attendance is clearly demonstrated by the statistics of this report, which
show, with few exceptions, the largest per cent, of attendance in consoli-dated
districts, rural special-tax districts and entire counties that have the
largest school fund, the longest school terms, and the best schools.
"The general rule seems to be, then, that attendance is in direct propor-tion
to the efficiency of the schools and the school system. I have already
called your attention to. the fact that with the improvement in the public
schoolhouse aud schools, and the increased educational interest during the
past few years, has come also an increase in the per cent, of enrollment and
attendance in the public schools.
"Much can also be done to increase the attendance upon the public schools
by earnest teachers, who will go into the homes of indifferent or selfish parents
whose children are not in school, and by persuasive argument and tact and
appeals to parental pride induce many of these parents to send their children
;
who will seek out children in homes of poverty, and remove, through quiet,
blessed cliarity, the causes of their detention from school. From the census
and from the report of the preceding teacher recorded in the school regis-ter
each teacher can ascertain at the beginning of the session the names
of all illiterates and nonattendants of school age in the district and the
reported causes of nonattendance. Under the rules recommended I)v the
*These figures have, of course, been materially decreased since the U. S. Census of 1900.
/
^\
26 WoEK TO Be Done and How to Do It.
State Superintendent and adopted by luanj- County Boards of Education the
teacher is required to spend two days immediately preceding the opening of
the school in visiting the pareuts and making special efforts to get these chil-dren
to attend school. I have no doubt that many of these can be and will
be reached by these efforts. Much can be done, also, by active, efficient school
committeemen and other school officers, who will take an interest in the
school and aid the teachers in finding and bringing in the children.
"The compelling powder of public opinion will do much to bring children into
the school. Logically as public sentiment for education increases, public
sentiment against nonattendance will increase. Public opinion might, in
many communities, be brought to the point of rendering it almost disgraceful
for parents to keep children at home without excellent excaise during the
session of the schools. Self-respecting parents would be loath to defy such
a public opinion and run the risk of forfeiting the esteem of the best people
of the community.
"It is the tragic truth, however, that there are some parents so blinded by
ignorance to the value and importance of education, and others so lazy,
thriftless or selfish that they cannot be reached by the power of attraction
and persuasion, or the mild compulsion of public opinion.'' It is the sad truth
that tho^&odlQSechildren most need the benefits offered by the public schools
are hardly to be reached by any other means but compulsion.
No stronger or more conclusive evidence of the impossibility of overcoming
illiteracy and nonattendance by the mild means of attraction, persuasion
and public opinion can be found than the fact revealed by this report that
I
the percentage of enrollment and attendance is larger in the rural districts
than in the towns and cities with their superior attractions of better houses,
longer terms, more teachers, trained Superintendents, shorter distance to
travel, paved streets, etc.
Compulsory Attendance.—Knowing the conservatism and the independence
of our people and their natural resentment of the suggestion of compulsion
in anything, I have been slow in reaching the conclusion that a compulsory
attendance law was necessary and wise for North Carolina. A careful investi-gation
of the existing conditions in North Carolina and of the means by which
similar conditions have been effectively remedied in other States and other
countries has forced me to the conclusion that nonattendance, irregularity of
attendance and the resulting illiteracy will never be overcome except by
reasonable, conservative compulsory laws. For seven years and more we have
been building new. attractive, comfortable schoolhouses at the average rate
of more than one a day for every day in the year ; we have been improving
the equipment and increasing in every way the attractiveness of the houses
and grounds ; we have been carrying on a vigorous campaign with considerable
success through a friendly press, through public addresses, through the
widespread circulation of literature for the cultivation of public sentiment and
for the increase of interest and enthusiasm for education ; we have been
increasing expenditures for all educational purposes; we have been .system-atizing
and improving the course of study ; we have been increasing the
compensation, the efficiency and the qualifications of County Superintendents
and teachers; we have been lengthening the school term: County Superin-tendents,
teachers and school officers ;have been increasing their efforts to
increase the attendance, and still thiCusands of white and colored children I thid
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 27
have reuiaiued out of the schools and are now on the straight road to illiteracy.
In spite of all these efforts of attraction and persuasion, the per cent, of
enrollment during the seAcn years, and the per cent, of average daily attend-ance
have been increased hut little.
The tendency of illiteracy is to perpetuate itself. The majority of these
illiterate children are the children of illiterates and perhaps the descendants
of generations of illiterates. It is natural that ignorance and illiteracy, being
incapable of understanding or appreciating the value and the necessity of edu-cation,
should be indifferent and apathetic toward it—just as natural as it
is for the children of darkness to love darkness rather than light. The in-tervention
of the strong arm of the law is the only effective means of saving
the children of illiteracy from the curse of illiteracy. The intervention of
the strong arm of the law is, in my opinion, the only hope of saving also the
children of literate, and sometimes intelligent, parents from the carelessness,
indifference, incompetency, laziness, thriftlessness or selfishness of such pa-rents.
' ""
No child is responsible for coming into the world, nor for his environment
when he comes. Every child has a right to have the chance to develop the
power to make the most possible of himself in spite of his environment during
the helpless and irresponsible period of childhood. No man, not even a parent,
has any right to deprive any child of this inalienable right. This right is
vouchsafed as a constitutional right to every child in North Carolina by the
following clauses of our State Constitution
:
i ''The people have the right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty
of the State to guard and maintain that right." Article I,_Se£tion 27.
"Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and
the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever
be encouraged." Article IX, Section 1.
"Every person presenting himself for registration (to vote) shall be able
to read and write any section of the Constitution in the English language"
(which went into effect December 1, IDOS). Article VI. Section 4.
The right of the State to intervene and protect the child in this right and
to protect itself, society, and humanity against the ignorance of the child is
recognized and clearly set forth m the following clause in the State Constitu-tion
: "The General Assembly is hereby empowered to enact that every child
of sufficient mental and physical ability shall attend the public schools during
the period between the ages of six and eighteen years for a term of not less
than sixteen months unless educated by other means." Article IX, Section 15.
/ Not only has the child a natural and constitutional right to have the chance
I to develop through education the powers that God has given him and thereby
jmake the most of himself, and, therefore, to have the law intervene, if neces-sary,
to secure this right to him, but the taxpayer, also, has a right to de-mand
the intervention of the government that compels him to pay his taxes
for the support of the schools, to secure to him the protection that he pays
for against the ignorance of the child. The government has the right to
intervene, if necessary, to protect itself, society, liberty and property against
the dangers to all to be found in ignorance, according to the experience of
mankind and the evidence of all human history. If it has the right to tax
its citizens for protection, it has the right to adopt the necessary means
to insure, as far as possible, that protection. If the State or the community
28 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
has the right to correct and punish crime and vice, so often resulting from
ignorance and illiteracy, it ought to have the right to take the necessary steps
to remove the cause. Prevention is cheaper and better always than correction
and punishment.
Compulsory attendance laws are the only means found effective by other
States and other counti'ies of the world for overcoming illiteracy or largely
reducing it. Practically all important foreign countries, except the ignorant
countries of Russia, Spain, and Turkey, have found it necessary to adopt com-pulsory
attendance laws in order to overcome illiteracy, and have found them
effective in overcoming it. Thirty-five of the 4G States of the American Union
have been compelled to resort tcTThe same means of overcoming it, and are
finding the means effective. Illiteracy is least in the States and countries that
have compulsory attendance laws, and greatest in those that have not. West
Virginia and Kentucky are the only States which may be called Southern
that have such laws. Eighteen per cent, of the total white population of the
United States reside in the Southern States ; 33 per cent, of all the white
illiterates of the United States reside in the Southern States. The compulsory
attendance States and countries contain more than 80 per cent, of all tho
people of the world that we call enlightened and progressive, and are the
greatest, richest, and most progressive people in the world. No State or
country in modern times, so far as I have been able to ascertain, has ever
repealed a compulsory attendance law after it was once enacted. If such
laws have been found beneficial and effective in all these great States and
countries, will they prove otherwise for North Carolina? One of the most
striking illustrations of the effectiveness of compulsory attendance laws in
reducing illiteracy is that of France. In 1882 a compulsoxy education act
went into effect. At that time 31 per cent, of the French people were illit-erate
; in 1900, the illiteracy had been reduced to 6 per cent. As bearing
upon the question of effectiveness of compulsory attendance laws in reduc-ing
or overcoming illiteracy, the following tables of comparative illiteracy in
typical Southern States that have no compulsory attendance laws and typical
New Englaiid and Western States that have such laws will be interesting and
suggestive
:
*Table a.—Native White Illiterates Over Ten Years of Age.
Per Ct.
Southern States 959,799 12.4
Virginia 95,583 11.4
North Carolina 175,-325 19.6
South Carolina 54,177 13.9
Georgia 99,948 12.2
Mississippi 35,4.32 8.1
Massachusetts 3,912 0.5
Rhode Island 1.196 1.0
Connecticut 1,958 0.6
Michigan 12,154 1.5
*These tables are taken from an excellent paper on Compulsory Education by Prof. W. H. Hand,
printed in the " Proceedings of the Eighth Conference for Education in the South." They are
based on the U. S. Census of 1900.
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 29
*Table B.—Native White Illiterates of Voting Age.
Per Ct.
Southern States 307,23G 12.2
Virginia 35,057 12.5
North Carolina 54,208 19.0
South Carolina 15,643 12.6
Georgia 31,914 12.1
Mississippi 11,613 8.3
Massachusetts 1,927 0.6
Rhode Island 550 1.2
Connecticut 1,040 0.9
Michigan 6,406 2.2
*Table C.—^Native White Illiterates Between Ten and Fifteen
Years of Age.
Southern States 262,590
Virginia 23,108
North Carolina 45,632
South Carolina 17,839
Georgia 25,941
Mississippi 10,212
Massachusetts 416
Rhode Island 100
Connecticut 160
Michigan- 1,141
As bearing upon the effect of illiteracy upon immigration the following table
will 'be suggestive. The first column gives the natives of the given State now
living in other States ; the second column gives the residents of the given
State born in other States ; the third column gives the loss or the gain the
given State has sustained. In this table the total population is included
:
Southern States* 3,421,660 2,762,508 659,152 Loss
Virginia 587,418 132,166 455,252 Loss
North Carolina 329,625 83,373 246,252 Loss
South Carolina 233,292 54,518 178,774 Loss
Georgia 410,299 189,889 220,410 Loss
Mississippi 296,181 215,291 80,890 Loss ^ Massachusetts 299,614 401,191 101,577 Gain ^'
Rhode Island 61,358 78,903 17,545 Gain
Connecticut 142,254 150,948 8,694 Gain
Michigan 288,737 407,562 118,825 Gain
The tide of emigration has evidently tlowed from illiterate to literate ; from
ignorance to intelligence ; from darkness to light.
To sum up, in view of the fact that only 69.5 per cent, of the total school
population of the State, 71.6 per cent, of the,., white and 65^2- per cent, of the
*These table.s are taken from an excellent paper on Compulsory Education by Prof. W. H. Hand,
printed in the " Proceeding's of the Eighth Conference for Education in the South." They are
based on the U. S. Census of 1900.
30 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
colored, is ever eurolled iu the public schools and only about 45 j}^-.jse»t. of
the white school population and 3bout.jaS-^p»ii-«eiit^ of the colored is in daily
attendance ; in view of the large number of illiterates, white and colored, and
of the large number of children of school age on the straight road to illiteracy
in North Carolina, can any honest citizen doubt the need of the intervention
of the strong arm of the law through compulsory attendance to overcome such
conditions? In view of the constitutional provisions guaranteeing to every
child the privilege of education and imposing upon the State the duty to
provide it and encourage the means for it, and of the constitutional amendment
recently adopted prescribing an educational qualification for suffrage and
citizenship ; in view of the divine right ^of every child to make the most
possible of himself in spite of any sort of environment in childhood, for which
he can in no sense be held responsible, can any citizen fail to recognize the con-stitutional
and the natural right of every child to have guaranteed to him the
opportunity to get an education and the duty of the law to intervene to pre-vent
any man from depriving any child of this natural and constitutional right?
"TrTview of the fundamental fact established by the experience of mankind that
in universal education is to be found the best protection to life, liberty and
property, and that, therefore, it is right and wise for the government to tax
every citizen to provide the means of universal education, and thereby secure
protection to himself and to every other citizen : in view of the further fact that
every citizen taxed for this purpose has the right to demand from the govern-ment
compelling him to pay the tax the protection that he has paid for against
the ignorance of every child, can any reasonable man doubt the right and the
duty of the State and the community to compel the child to use the means
of protection provided and to intervene to prevent the parent from preventing
the child from using them? In view of the further fact that compulsory attend-ance
laws are the only means found effective in all other States and in all
foreign countries for reducing and overcoming illiteracy, is not any reasonable
man forced to the conclusion that North Carolina will be compelled to resort
to the same means in order to bring all of her children into the schools pro-vided
for them and thus reduce illiteracy and secure to every child his right,
to the government its safety, and to the taxpayer the protection that he pays
for?
There is already considerable sentiment in the State for a compulsory attend-ance
law, and the sentiment seems to be increasing. 'The conditions are so
different in different sections and different counties of the State that it might
not be wise to pass a State compulsory attendance law and undertake to put
it into -operation at once in every part of the State. It is safest not to force
public opinion, but to cultivate it along right lines with patience and persistence
and tact. In communities and counties in which the conditions are favorable
for it, and in which a healthy public sentiment demands it or can be brought
to demand it, I can see no good reason now why compulsory attendance should
not be enacted and enforced. There are already many such communities, and
even some entire counties. I beg to suggest, therefore, for your consideration
the enactment of a mild, reasonable, conservative compulsory attendance law
requiring all children to attend the public schools, unless attending some other
school, at least four months or more each year between the ages of eight and
fourteen years. All the machinery necessary for the successful execution of
this law could be set out in the act and then a proviso could be added authoriz-ing
the County Board of Education of any county, upon petition or vote of a
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 31
majority oi; the patrons of any public school, or of the taxpayers or qualified
voters of auy public school district or any township or any county to put the
law into execution for said school, said district, said township, or said county.
If deemed wisest, the act could give the County Board the discretion of acting
upon the matter by petition or of submitting it to a vote in an election to be
ordered by them.
Compulsory Attendance Act of 1907.—The General Assembly of 1907 passed
a compulsory attendance law, embodying the above suggestions except as to
the petition. If the Assembly of 1909 will amend the present law as recom-mended
elsewhere in this report, by inserting the petition clause, making it
possible to secure compulsory attendance in small areas prepared for it and
needing it, without the delay and the formality and the expense of an election,
many districts will adopt it during the next two years. The practicability and
success of it can thus be demonstrated and compulsory attendance, stimulated
by these successful examples, will, I believe, spread like a blessed contagion
in a few years over the entire State.
Improvement of Teachers and Increase of Teachers' Salaries.—"Without
the vitalizing touch of a properly qualitied teacher, houses, grounds and
equipment are largely dead mechanism. It is the teacher that breathes the
breath of life into the school. Better schools are impossible without better
teachers. Better teachers are impossible without better education, better
training, and better opportunities for them to obtain such education and train-ing.
Better education and better training and the utilization of better oppor-tunities
for these by teachers are impossible without better pay for teachers.
Reason as we may about it, gush as we may about the nobility of the work
and the glorious rewards of it hereafter, back of this question of better
teachers must still lie the cold business question of better pay.
"The average salary of rural white teachers in North Carolina in 1908
was $32.24; the average salary of colored teachers was $22.48; the average
length of the rural school term was 89.2 days for white and 82.1 days for col-ored
; making the average annual salary of rural white teachers in North Caro-lina,
therefore, $143.84 and the average «iunual salary of rural colored teachers
$02.35. For such meager salaries men and women cannot afford to put them-selves
into the long and expensive training necessary for the best equipment
for this delicate and difficult work of teaching. The State may supply the
best opportunities that the age affords for the training of the teachers, but,
as long as the rank and file of them receive such meager salaries, these
opportunities will be beyond their reach and they must inevitably divide
their attention between the service of two masters to make even a bare
living. As long as they must work at some other business for six or eight
months of the year, and at the business of school-teaching for only four
or five months, they, can scarcely hope to become professional and masterful
teachers. The teacher who does something else eight months of the year for
a living and teaches school four months of the year for extra money must
continue to be more of something else than of a teacher.
"With short school terms, small salaries, poor schoolhouses, and other con-ditions
adverse to success, we cannot hope to command and retain first-class
talent in this business of teaching the rural school, however good or however
accessible the opportunities for improving teachers may be made. We must,
in the outset, face the cold business truth that, as the South comes more and
more rapidly into her industrial and agricultural heritage, and the channels
32 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
of profitable employment multiply, the best men and women in the profession
of teaching cannot be retained in it, and little inducement will be offered to
other men and women of ambition, ability and promise to enter it unless the
compensation for the teacher's service is made somewhat commensurate with
that offered in other fields of labor. As long as the annual salary paid the
teacher who works upon the immortal stuff of mind and soul is less than that
paid the rudest workers in wood and iron, less than that paid the man that
shoes your horse or plows your corn or paints j-our house or keeps your jail,
the best talent cannot be secured and kept in the teaching profession—the
teaching profession must continue to be made in many instances but a stepping-stone
to more profitable employments or a means of pensioning inefficient and
needy mediocrity.
"The first step, then, in tlie direction of improvement of teachers is an
'' increase in the salary of teachers so as to make it worth the while of capable
men and women to enter the profession of teaching, to remain in it, to put
themselves in training for it, and to avail themselves of the opportunity
offered for improvement. An increase in the monthly compensation and an
increase in the annual school term are the only two ways of increasing the
teacher's salary. The only means of increasing the compensation and the
school term is by increasing the available school funds for each school. The
only practical means of doing this under present conditions are consolidation
and local taxation.
"That the counties and districts that pay the best salaries secure, as a
rule, the best teachers, is the best evidence that this question of better teachers
is largely a question of better salaries. With the growth of educational senti-ment
and enthusiasm the demand for better teachers has grown, but every
community that demands a better teacher ought to remember 'that the de-mand
is unreasonable and vmlikely to be met unless the means for better pay
be provided by the community.
"The raising of the standard of examination and gradation of teachers will
be ineffective, and perhaps unfair, unless it is accompanied by a corre-sponding
increase in the wages of teachers. Of what avail will it be to
raise the requirements without raising the compensation, when even now,
with the present low standard of qualifications, it is almost impossible in
many counties to get enough teachers to teach the schools, and when even
now the same qualifications will command much better compensation in
almost any other vocation? The logical result of raising the standard of
examination and gradation without raising the prices paid would be to de-crease
the supply of teachers and render it practically impossible to supply
the schools with teachers. An increase in the requirements for teaching, a
multiplication of the opportunities for the improvement of teachers, and a
mandatory requirement of teachers to avail themselves of these opportuni-ties,
must in all reason and fairness be accompanied by a corresponding in-crease
in salary. Better work deserves and commands better pay."
The increase in teachers' salaries during the past ten years has not been
at all commensurate with the increase in living expenses, and with the
increase in salaries and wages of those engaged in other professions and
callings. In considering this question of the salary of the teacher, it must
be remembered that the teacher must live twelve months in the year, even
though he receives salary for only four or five or six months. The financial
demands upon the teachers must also be remembered. They must live and
Work to ]>e Done and How to Do It. 33
dress well ia order to command the respect of the children and the patrons.
To maintain their professional growth and increase the effectiveness of their
work, they must spend a considerable part of their salary for special courses
of work in summer schools and institutes, and for the purchase of profes-sional
books and magazines. It must be remembered, also, that teachers must
look forward, to the years when it will be impossible for them to teach, for,
as they grow old, they become less efficient for the arduous work of the school.
Their salaries, therefore, should be sufficient to lay aside something for old
age, as no pensions are provided for teachers. Finally, it should be remem-bered
that in a republic the intelligence, morality, power, effectiveness, and
earning capacity of the common people are dependent largely upon the work of
the teachers of the public schools, and that, therefore, their work is of the
most vital importance and should command a salary commensurate with its
importance. Unless we can bring our people to a realization of these ti'uths
and thereby create a public sentiment and a public demand for better salaries
for better teachers, the ranks of the rural school teachers will continue to
be tilled with many untrained, incompetent, inexperienced persons, using
this holiest of callings as a mere stepping-stone to some other profession or
calling, with mere tyros without serious purpose, teaching for a short time
simply to make a support until something better turns up. There will con-tinue
to be a dearth of men, because they can command better salaries for
almost anything, even for breaking rocks on the road, than for teaching rural
schools a few months in the year. There will continue to be a dearth of
trained and experienced women of power, because such women can now easily
command far better salaries in other callings open -to women, and almost any
woman can command a larger annual salary for measuring calico and selling
bxittons than for training minds, inspiring souls and forming characters in
the rural schools. The situation is serious. The demand for good teachers,
and especially for good male teachers, is greatly in excess of the supply,
because the salaries paid will not command and retain such teachers. Let us
wage a campaign from mountain to sea, through press and public speech, for
the education of public sentiment to an appreciation of the teacher's work
and to an insistent demand 'for better compensation for that work.
Improvement of County Institutes and Summer Schools.—"In the mean-time,
some means must I>e found for placing at small expense within easy
reach of the rank and file of the teachers the best possible opportunities for
improvement under present conditions. These opportunities must be carried to
the teachers. They cannot afford to go far nor to spend much money to get
them. I am satisfied, therefore, that the county institute, the county teachers'
association, and the summer school are at present the only practical means of
reaching and helping the majority of the poorly paid rural public school teach-ers
of the State. These institutes should be a combination of an institute and
a summer school, affording the teachers an opportunity to increase their knowl-edge
of the subjects taught and to learn by practical talks and object lessons
better ways of teaching them. They should continue not less than two weeks
nor more than a month. They should be held in every county at least once in
two years, and attendance upon them should be, as now, compulsory.
"Heretofore the work of these institutes has been desultory. There has
been no systematic or uniform plan of work. There has been no progressive
and continuous development in the work. The institutes have been conducted
34 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
by differeDt teachers in different ways in different counties each year, some-times
conducted by men and women without experience or special fitness
for such worlv, generally conducted by teachers with whom this work is a
mere incident to their regular work, adopted as a means of supplementing
their salaries during the vacation months. Four or five thousand dollars are
spent annually by the countjes in this desultory work. Section 4167 of the
School Law now vests in the State Superintendent the power to appoint the
institute conductors and provides for the appropriation of not more than two
hundred and fifty dollars by each county for institute work. If this section
were amended so as to require each county to appropriate at least two hundred
dollars for a county institute and summer school once in two years, the State
Superintendent has in mind a plan by which he could easily organize this
institute and summer school' work upon such a basis as would enable him to
employ trained men and women for it.
"Under this plan the work could be organized in such a way as to supple-ment
and give effectiveness to the professional work carried on through the
manuals for teachers, issued as bulletins from time to time by the State
Department of Public Instruction. A systematic, progressive course of insti-tute
work could be arranged and put into successful execution whereby the
teachers would receive credit for the work done each year, and the same
teachers, after having completed one year's work, would not be required to
go over the same ground in the next institute. The successful completion of
the entire course of two or three years of institute and summer school work
might lead to the issuance of longer term certificates valid in other counties
of the State, and possibly to excusing from future compulsory attendance upon
county institutes and summer schools. In this way definiteness and direction
could be given to this work, greater incentive would be given the teachers
to attend and greater benefits in every way would be derived by attendance.
Much less difficulty, I have no doubt, would be experienced in securing attend-ance,
and there would be much less complaint about compulsory attendance.
"Under this plan the institute and summer school work would cost but little
more than it now costs. Much more effective institutes and summer schools,
with much more efficient conductors, would be held in every county of the
State for a longer term at least once in two years at a biennial expense
of about two hundred dollars to the county. Not one cent of State appro-priation
would be necessary. The only change in the School Law necessary to
secure this great improvement in the institute and summer school work
would be a change of section 4167 thereof so as to make the appropriation of
two hundred dollars by each county for institute and summer school work
mandatory once in two years instead of permissive, as at present.
"Other means of placing the opportunities of improvement within easy reach
of the rank and file of the teachers are the manuals on teaching the different
subjects issued as bulletins from the^Department of Public Instruction, county
teachers' associations, and a State Teachers' Reading Circle. The work of
these s:hould be correlated with the work of the county institutes and summer
schools. In the county associations, and in the institutes, and in the examina-tions
for teachers' certificates, the teachers could be held responsible for the
work outlined in the teachers' manuals and in the course of study sent out
beforehand for the county institute, and in this way could be somewhat pre-pared
beforehand for the work of the institute. In this way a competent
County Superintendent, whose salary justified his giving his time to the
WoKK TO Be Done and How to Do It. 35
work, could carry on all the year the same sort of work in teacher-traiuing
as is carried on by a competent superintendent of a town or city system of
schools, and the institute when it came would but enlarge and give effective-ness
and better direction to his work. As suggested above, teachers could be
incited and stimulated to carry on the work by being held responsible for it
in the examinations and institutes, and by having credit given for it in these
examinations and in longer term certificates valid in other counties."
By the addition of $1,200 to the amount now paid for salary and expenses
of a superintendent of the three colored normal schools, which position has
been made vacant by the death of the former Superintendent, Prof. John
Duckett, a man of the best professional training and experience could be em-ployed
as general superintendent and inspector of the entire teacher-training
work of the State. Such a man could organize, direct and supervise the entire
work of the county teachers' institutes and of the county teachers' associa-tions.
In co-operation with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction,
he could select carefull.v the force of institute conductors for summer work,
hold conferences with these for unifying and systematizing their work and
aid them in many ways in it. He could be of invaluable assistance to the
County Superintendents in directing and systematizing the work of the county
teachers' associations, preparing and issuing, through the Department of Pub-lic
Instruction, from time to time, professional bulletins for the direction and
stimulation of all the professional home study and training of the rank and
file of the rural teachers. He could be of invaluable assistance to the normal
schools and the Normal College, in aiding greatly to correlate their work and
keep it in close touch with the work of the county institutes and teachers'
associations and with the needs of the country teachers. In other words, he
would be a most valuable connecting link between all the parts of the teacher-training
work of the State from bottom to top.
I have recommended elsewhere that this additional $1,200 can easily be
provided without additional appropriation by authorizing the State Board of
Education to deduct it from the first hundred thousand dollars appropriated
by the State for the public schools. The loss of this would scarcely be felt by
any county, being an average of only about $12 to the county ; and the ben-efits
of it would be shared by the County Superintendent and all the teachers
of every county.
County Supervision.—"As pointed out in the first part of this report, there
has been marked improvement in county supervision. The average salary
of the County Superintendent has been more than doubled sine? 1901. The
Superintendents in nearly all the counties of the State are devoting more
time to the work than ever before, but there is still much work to be done
before county supervision can be made as efficient as it should be. The more
I learn of the educational work of the State in the discharge of my official
duties and through my visitations and field work, the more clearly I see that
the real strategic point in all this work to-day is the County Superintendent.
Upon this subject I beg to quote from my annual address to the State Associa-tion
of County Superintendents delivered November 11, 1903 : 'The work of
the State Superintendent must be done and his plans executed largely through
the County Superintendent. ' The work of the County Board of Education
must be carried on and its plans executed largely through the County Superin-tendent.
The work of the School Committeemen will not be done properly
without the stimulation and direction of the County Superintendent. No
36 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
proper standard of qualifications for teachers can be maintained and eii-forced
except by the County Superintendent. No esprit de corps among the
teachers can be awaliened and sustained save by a County Superintendent in
whom it dwells. No local and permanent plans for the improvement of public
school teachers through county teachers' associations, summer institutes and
schools, township meetings, etc., can be set on foot and successfully carried
out save under the leadership of an energetic County Superintendent. All
campaigns for the education of public sentiment on educational questions and
for the advancement of the work of public education along all needful lines
are doomed to failure or, at least, to only partial and temporary success
without the active help and direction of a County Superintendent knowing his
people, knowing the conditions and needs of his county, knowing something of
the prejudices and preferences of the different communities, endowed with
tact, wisdom, common sense, character, grit, and some ability to get along
with folks, and enjoying the confidence of teachers, ofBcers. children, and
patrons. Upon the County Superintendent mainly must depend the bringing
together of all those forces In the county—public and private, moral and
religious, business and professional—that may be utilized for the advancement
of the educational work of the county and for the awakening of an educational
interest among all classes of people, irrespective of poverty or wealth, religion
or politics. This work of educating the children of all the people is too great a
task to be performed by any part of the people. No real county system, com-posed
of a large number of separate schools unified and correlated in their
work, each pursuing a properly arranged and wisely planned course of study
in the subjects required, and the whole system fitting into its proper place in
a great State system, can ever be worked out save through the aid and under
the direction of a County Superintendent with an adequate conception of his
work and with an ability to do it.'
"Such a work requires for its successful execution a man of mind and
heart and soul, a gentleman, a man of common sense, tact, energy, consecrated
purpose, education, special training, and business ability—a man who can give
all his time and thought and energy to the work. You cannot command the
services of such a man in any business without paying him a living salary, for
such men are in great demand for any work. May we not hope, therefore,
that at no distant day the salary attached to so important an oflSce may be
sufficient in every county to employ trained and competent men for all their
time, to unfetter the earnest, competent men already engaged in the work so
that they may have a chance to do their best work and show what is in them,
and to justify men in the coming years in placing themselves in special train-ing
for this special work?
"It is noticeable and significant that educational progress along all lines is
more rapid in those counties in which competent Superintendents have been
put into the field for all their time, and that in almost every county in which
this has been done the school fund has been increased by local taxation and
by economical management of the finances, looking carefully after the sources
of income, much more than the increase in the salary of the Superintendent.
For example, in Guilford County, the Superintendent's salary was increased
$1,000 a year, and during the fii-st year of his administration, largely through
his efforts, the annual school fund was increased by local taxation alone
$7,745. In Pitt County the efficient Superintendent was put into the field for
his entire time at increased salary, and already the annual increase in the
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 37
school fuud from local taxation, secured maiuly through his activity, is much
more than the increase in his salary, to say nothing of the remarkable increase
in the efficiency of the entire county system of schools resulting from his more
efficient work. Similar evidence could be given about other counties. You
cannot make a success of any gi-eat business like this business of education
without a man at its head devoting all his time, thought and energy to it.
Wherever this is the case the educational work of the county is moving,
wherever it is not the case the work is lagging. You cannot do anything
worth doing in the world without a man. It is the highest economy to put
money into a man."
More Money and How to Get It.—For all this work yet to be done in the
way of building and improving schoolhouses and grounds, lengthening the
school term, increasing the salaries of teachers and County Superintendents,
providing high-school instruction, etc., more money must, of course, be pro-vided.
Two ways of providing this money may be suggested
:
1. The adoption and enforcement of some plan for getting taxable prop-erty
on the tax books and assessing it at its real value, or something near its
real value. An examination of the tables of the statistical reports in this
volume showing the school funds raised in each county from the property tax
of eighteen cents on the hundred dollars and of the list of counties asking aid
from the special State appropriation for a four-months school term, and the
amounts received by these counties from this appropriation, will convince any
reasonable man, I think, that there is something wrong in the method of
assessing the value of property. Fifty-four counties now receive aid in amounts
varying from $95.25 to $4,462.09 for a four-months school term. Upon any
reasonable and uniform valuation of property, many of these counties would
have money enough for a four-months school term without any aid from the
special State appropriation, and the others would need much less from this
source. Much of this special appropriation could then be available for other
needed purposes in strengthening the public. school system. To one who has
traveled through many of these counties and observed their prosperity and
rapidly increasing wealth, it is self-evident that there is something wrong in
the method of assessing property, when counties like Cleveland, Cumberland,
and a number of others that might be mentioned, fail to receive from an
eighteen cents property tax enough money for a four-mouths school term
at the present low salaries of teachers. Upon a correct valuation of property,
of course, the school fund derived from this eighteen cents property tax would
be largely increased in every county. In my opinion, if all the property in the
State could be placed on the tax books at a fair and reasonable valuation, the
public school fund would be sufficient to maintain the public schools of the
State for an average school term of five or six months without any increase
of the present rate of taxation for school purposes.
2. The second means for getting more money for the schools is by special
county taxation. As explained in another part of this report, under the decis-ion
of the Supreme Court in the case of Collie v. Commissioners of Franklin
County, the county commissioners, upon demand of the County Board of Edu-cation,
are required to levy a special tax on all property and polls of the
county sufficient to provide at least a four-months school term in every school
district of the county, as directed by Article IX, Section 3, of the Consti-tution.
In their estimate of the additional funds necessary for this purpose
to be raised by a separate county tax, the County Board of Education can, of
38 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
course, take into consideration tlie needs of tlie schools for their gradual and
conservative improvement in equipment, supervision, teachers, etc. This opens
the way for a sufficient increase in the school fund in the weali counties to
increase greatly the efficiency of the schools in those counties.
Local Taxation.—"This business of public education is like any other great
business. For successfully conducting it, enough capital must be invested in it
to supply the necessary equipment and to employ the necessary number of com-petent
trained men and women to carry on the business according to mod-ern
progressive business and professional principles. I have undertaken to
show in this report that for better houses and equipment, better teachers,
better supervision and longer school terms more money is the fundamental
need. The constitutional limit of taxation has already been reached in
all the counties of the State but one. Without an amendment to the Con-stitution,
therefore, or special legislation for each county, the general school
fund cannot be increased except for a four-Jiionths term. A special annual
State appropriation of two hundred thousand dollars has already been made to
the public schools by the General Assembly. Under present conditions the State
can hardly be expected to increase the school fund for a four-months term fur-ther
by special appropriation. It must be very evident, therefore, to every
thoughtful man that in addition to the methods suggested above the only other
two means of supplying this fundamental need of more money for the public
schools are consolidation and local taxation. As heretofore shown in this
report, by reasonable consolidation the present available funds can be greatly
economized by reducing the number of schools and the number of teachers
necessary to teach a given number of children. In this way more money
from the present funds will be available for each school for more teachers,
better salaries, better houses and equipment, and a longer term. After mak-ing
the present available funds go as far as possible through the economy of
reasonable consolidation, the only other means of increasing the school fund
of any local school is local taxation.
"Under section 4115 of the School Law, upon a petition of one-fourth of the
freeholders residing therein, a special-tax district may be laid off within any
definitely fixed boundaries, and upon approval of the County Board of Educa-tion
an election upon a local tax for the schools within that district, not to
exceed thirty cents on the hundred dollars and ninety cents on the poll, must
be ordered by the County Board of Commissioners. This places an election
upon local taxation for public schools within easy reach of any county, town-ship,
or school district in North Carolina. I have already reported the
progress in local taxation during the past two years. While it is encouraging,
still, when it is remembered that only about 719 districts out of a total of
about 5,338 white districts in the State have yet adopted local taxation, it
will be readily seen that the work of local taxation is scarcely more than well
begun.
"Sixty-nine per cent, of all the money raised for public schools in the United
States is raised by local taxation. Nearly one-fifth of all the funds expended
for the maintenance of the public schools in North Carolina is now raised by
local taxation. In all the States having systems of public schools well
equipped and adequate to the education of all their people, a large per cent,
of the public school fund is raised by local taxation. In some of these States
as much as 95 per cent, is raised by local taxation. In North Carolina the
only towns, cities, and rural communities that have succeeded in providing
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 39
a system of schools opeu eight or teu months iu the year, adequately equipped
with houses and teachers, have been compelled to supplement their State and
county school funds by local taxation. The experience of other States and of
these communities in our own State compels the conclusion that the only hope
of largely increasing the present available funds for the rural schools, and thus
making these schools equal to the demands of the age and adequate to the
education of 82 per cent, of our population, is to be found in the adoption of
local taxation.
"The principle of local taxation is right and wise. It involves 'the princi-ples
of self-help, self-interest, self-protection, community help, community inter-est,
and community protection. Every cent of the money paid by local taxation
for schools by any community remains in the community for the improvement
of the community school, and every cent of it is invested through a better school
in the minds and souls and characters of the rising generation, in an increase
in the intelligence and efficiency of the entire community. Every cent of this
local tax that goes into a better school to give the children of all a better
chance to be somebody and to do something iu the world is invested in the best
possible advertisement for the best class of immigration and is the surest
possible means of keeping in the community the best people already residing
there by giving them a better opportunity to give their children a better chance
to get an. education that will better fit them for coping with the world with-out
having to move into another community to get it. Every cent of money,
therefore, invested by local taxation iu a better school, by inviting a better
class of immigration and preventing the disastrous drain upon its best blood
by other communities that offer better school facilities, enhances the value
of every cent of property in the community by increasing the demand for it
by the best people. The wisdom, then, of such a tax for such a purpose is too
manifest to need further argument."
Schoolhouses.—There are still 247 white and 132 colored school districts
in North Carolina to be supplied with houses. There are 111 white and 195
colored log houses and many old frame houses unfit for use to be replaced.
There are hundreds of old houses to be repaired, enlarged, equipped, and beau-tified.
The equipment of most of the old houses is poor and entirely inadequate.
Some idea of the inadequacy of this equipment may be obtained when it is re-membered
that in 190S only .$38,473.27 was spent for furniture and equipment
for rural schoolhouses. A comfortable, well-equipped schoolhouse is the first
essential of a successful school. Such a house insures permanency and inspires
in children and patrons pride and confidence.
In every county there should be a strict enforcement of the law placing the
building of schoolhouses under the control of the County Board of Educa-tion
and requiring all new houses to be constructed in accordance with plans
approved by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and that board.
A revised and enlarged pamphlet of approved plans for schoolhouses has
been recently issued from the office of the State Superintendent of Public
Instruction, and copies of it can be secured upon application. The pamphlet
contains bills of materials, si>ecifieations, cuts, floor plans, blanlj contracts,
etc., for the erection of any house in it.
The law requiring the contract for buildings to be in writing and the house
to be inspected, received, and approved by the County Superintendent before
full payment is made, should always be rigidly enforced. No more money
should be allowed to be wasted on cheap, temporary, improperly constructed
40 Work to Be Done axd How to Do It.
houses. Properly enforced, the law is now ample to insure the construction
of permanent, comfortable schoolhouses and to prevent the impositions of
inefficient contractors and builders.
School Districts and Consolidation.—In my preceding biennial reports this
subject has been so fully discussed that I deem it unnecessary to enter into
any full discussion of it again. Much good work has been done in reason-able
consolidation and enlargement of districts. With much benefit to their
school interests, some counties have been entirely redistricted. Hundreds of
unnecessary little districts have been abolished, but in many counties there
are still too many of these little districts. There are still 5,333 white school
districts and 2,298 colored school districts. The average area of the white
school district in the State is 9.2 square miles. The white school districts
might be decreased to half the present number, where streams, swamps,
etc., do not prevent, and the average size might be increased to double the
present area, and still, as a little calculation will show, in a district of
fairly regular size with a schoolhouse near the center, the farthest child would
be within three miles of the house, and a large majority of the children would,
of course, be much nearer. The decrease in the number of school districts
means, of course, an increase in the money for each district, an increase in the
number of children in each school, an increase in the number of schools with
more than one teacher, affording instruction in more advanced branches of
study, a better classification of the children, a reduction in the number of
classes necessary for each teacher, an increase in the time that each teacher
can give to each class, a concentration of the energies of the teacher upon
fewer subjects, a stimulation of the children to greater effort by the greater
competition and greater mental friction of larger numbers.
This work of enlarging the school districts by the consolidation of unnec-essary
small districts or by redistricting townships and counties must, of
course, be carried on with wisdom, discretion, and justice. Every child has a
right to be within reasonable walking distance of some school until conditions
and funds justify provision for transportation, but any healthy child can
better afford to walk two or three miles to get to a good school than to
attend a poor one at his gate. It is wiser and more economical to have one
school taught in one good house with two or three good teachers than to have
two or three little schools in poor little one-room houses, taught by one teacher
with a handful of children, with almost as many classes as children. For
a fuller and more detailed discussion, however, of this subject and of the ex-travagance
and unwisdom of a multiplicity of unnecessary little districts, I
beg to refer you to my preceding biennial reports.
Transportation of Fupils.—It is hoped that in the near future improvement
in roads and rural conditions will warrant consolidation of schools on a larger
scale, and the adoption of transportation of children by wagons and teams to
central schools, which is now in successful operation in many Western States.
This method has already been adopted in a few districts in this State, and the
experiment will be watched with interest.
Better Classification and More Thorough Instruction.—Through the use of
a graded course of study sent out in pamphlet form from my office and the
new registers and new blanks for teachers' reports, some good work has been
done in classifying and grading the rural public schools. Much more remains
still to be done. Upon this subject I beg to (piote from my biennial report of
1902-1904
:
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 41
"A recent inquiry concerning the course of study and tbe classification of
pupils in the public schools of the State reveals a great lack of uniformity and,
in some counties of the State, a somewhat chaotic condition. I sent to all
County Superintendents blanks for reports of the daily programs and of the
progress made by the various classes. These blanks were sent to the public
school teachers, and the Superintendents were requested to send the best ten to
my office. A careful examination of these and a compilation of their contents
showed that the average number of recitations in the school with one teacher
undertaking to give instruction in all subjects required by law to be taught
in the public schools varied from 35 to 55.
"In order to give instruction in all the subjects the teaching of which is
made mandatory under the law, at least 21 recitations a day will be required.
The legal length of a school day is six hours, hence an average of only
twelve minutes could be allotted to a recitation in any school with only
one teacher. The folly of even expecting thorough and successful instruc-tion
in so many subjects in so many classes by one teacher is apparent with-out
argument. The need for a better classification so as to reduce the classes
to the smallest possible -number, thereby giving the longest possible time to
each class, is also apparent. Owing to the different ages of the children,
ranging from six to twenty-one years, and the different degrees of advance-ment,
about as many classes will be necessary in a school with one teacher
as in a school with two or more teachers, the chief difference being, of course,
in the number of children in a class. Unless some means, therefore, can be
found for increasing the number of schools with two or more teachers and
decreasing the number of schools with only one teacher, I see but little hope
of successful instruction in any of the high school branches or of improv-ing
materially the instruction even in the elementary branches known as the
common school branches. It is apparent that in a well-classified school with
two or three teachers, with few if any more classes than a school with one
teacher, each teacher will have two or three times as much time for each
class, and will be able to concentrate his thought and energies upon fewer
classes and subjects and, consequently, to do more thorough teaching in those
subjects, and that at least one of the teachers would have time for instruc-tion
of the older children in the higher branches. I have been so firmly con-vinced
of the impossibility of thorough instruction by one teacher in more
than the elementary branches, that I have advised in the preface to the
Course of Study that only in exceptional cases should instruction in any
higher branches ever be undertaken in'any school with only one teacher. (The
law now limits instruction in one-teacher schools to the elementary branches.)
"The only means of reducing the number of schools with only one teacher
and getting more schools with two or more teachers and the better classifi-cation,
more thorough instruction and more advanced work so necessary for
the growth and development of our public school system are to be found
in reasonable consolidation and local taxation. By means of consolidation
more teachers and more children can be brought together into one school, and
by means of local taxation more money will be available for the employ-ment
of more teachers at better salaries and for the lengthening of the school
term. In the meantime, through the adoption of the graded course of study
heretofore referred to, and its enforcement in all the public schools, the work
of the public schools can be greatly improved in uniformity, definiteness, thor-oughness
and classification." There has, of course, been marked improvement
42 Work to Be Doiste and How to Do It.
iu classifying and grading the rural public schools since 1904, but there is still
great need for reducing the number of classes and the number of subjects in
the one-teacher school, iu order to secure more thoroughness in the few essen-tials,
and also great need for increasing the number of two-teacher schools.
The Education of the Negro.—As the conditions have not changed since my
last report, and as I have seen no reason to change my views upon the subject
of the education of the negro, I shall repeat here the views expressed in my
preceding biennial report, changing only the figures used in that report so as
to conform to the correct figures for this biennial period.
"It would be easier and m

n iw r€m/imn*'H/s o/
f/t^^iti/efiJeftlo^^fd/^ Jrm^rMr/ion.
BIENXIAL llEPOIiT
SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
XOETH CAEOLIXA
GOYER^ OR EGBERT B. GLE]^:N^
SCHOLASTIC YEARS 1906-1907 AND 1907-1908.
RALEIGH:
E. M. UzzELL & Co., State Printers and Binders.
1908.
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.
J. Y. JoYNER Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Allen J. Baewick Chief Clerli.
C. H. Mebane Special Clerlv for Loan Fund, etc.
Miss Hattie B. Arbington Stenographer.
John Duckett* Superintendent of Colored Normal Schools.
N. W. Walker State Inspector of Public High Schools.
STATE BOARD OF EXAMINERS.
J. T. Joyner Chairman ex officio.
A. J. Barwick Secretary.
F. L. Stevens West Raleigh.
N. W. Walker Chapel Hill.
John Graham Warrentou".
Z. V. Jtjdd Raleigh.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION.
R. B. Glenn Governor, President.
J. Y. JoYNER Superintendent of Public Instruction, Secretary.
F. D. Winston Lieutenant-Governor, Windsor, N. C.
J. Bryan Grimes Secretary of State.
B. R. Lacy State Treasurer.
B. F. Dixon State Auditor.
R. D. Gilmer Attorney-General.
*Deceased.
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
State of North Carolina,
Department of Public Instruction,
Raleigh, December 2, 1908.
To His ExceUency, Robert B. Glenn,
Governor of North Carolina.
Dear Sir:—According to section 4000 of tlie Revisal of 1905, I have the
honor to transmit my Biennial Report for the scholastic years 1906-'O7 and
1907-'0S.
In transmitting my last report during your administration, I beg to make
grateful acknowledgment of your loyal support and active co-operation, your
wise counsel and unselfish service, as Governor and as President of the State
Board of Education. ^r ,. , t ^ t/%attvtt^t-. Very truly yours, J. Y. JOYNER,
Superintendent of Puilic Instruction.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PART I.
Summary of Two-years Progress in Education.
Summary of Work to Be Done.
Recommendations.
Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
General Outline of Two-years Progress.
Statistical Summary of Two-years Progress.
PART II.
Public School Statistics, 1906-1907.
Public School Statistics, 1907-1908.
PART III.
Report of State Inspector of Public High Schools.
Report of Superintendent of Colored Normal Schools
and Croatan Normal School.
Report of State Forester.
Report of Loan Fund.
Report of Rural Libraries.
Report of Expenditures Slater Fund.
Report of Expenditures Peabody Fund.
Report of Local-tax Districts.
Circular Letters of State Superintendent.
Decisions of State Superintendent.
PART I.
SUMMARY OF TWO-YEARS PROGRESS.
SUMMARY OF WORK TO BE DONE.
RECOMMENDATIONS.
WORK TO BE DONE AND HOW TO DO IT.
GENERAL OUTLINE OF TWO-YEARS PROGRESS.
STATISTICAL SUMMARY OF TWO-YEARS PROGRESS.
X
SUMMARY OF TWO-YEARS PROGRESS IN EDUCATION.
The statistics compiled iu this office for the biennial period beginning July 1,
1900, and ending June 30, 1908, show continued educational progress.
During this biennial period the annual available school fund raised by State
and county taxation has been increased $288,377.72 ; the additional funds raised
by local taxation iu special-tax districts have been increased $78,415.34 in urban
districts and $123,549.09 in rural districts, making a total increase of $490,-
342.15 in the annual school fund raised by taxation, State, county and local. In
addition, there were raised during the period, for educational purposes, $551,-
096.22 by bonds and $198,875.09 by private donations.
During the period there has been an increase of 282 in the number of special-tax
school districts established by vote of the people, making the total number
of such districts in the State to date 719.
With this increase in the available funds for educational purposes there has
beerl during the period a corresponding increase in those things which can be
provided only by increased fimds. There has been an increase of $598,717 in
the value of rural school property and $593,541 iu the value of the city school
property, making a total increase of $1,192,258 in the total value of the public
school property of the State. There has been expended during the period
$1,008,004.71 for building, improving and equipping public schoolhouses ; 779 new
rural schoolhouses have been built, at an average cost of $685. There has been
an increase of 529 in the number of houses equipped with patent desks. The
average annual school term for the entire State has been lengthened 3.3 days.
The school terms in the newly established local-tax districts have been greatly
lengthened, in many instances doubled. The salaries of public school teachers
and county superintendents have been increased. There has been an increase
of 589 in the number of white teachers employed and 90 in the number of
colored teachers employed, and an increase of $19.80 in the average annual
salary of white teachers and $8.02 in the average annual salary of colored
teachers. There has been an increase of 189 in the number of white schools
employing two teachers or more. The average annual salary of county superin-tendents
has been increased $135.60. There has been an increase in the number
of county supex'intendents giving their entire time to the work of supervision,
and an increase in the time devoted to their work by nearly all other county
superintendents. More than one-half of the superintendents now devote their
entire time to their work.
During the period there has been an increase of 500 in the number of rural
school libraries, making the total number now 2.050. The work of publication
and distribution of educational literature iu the form of bulletins for teachers
and others for professional improvement and for the cultivation of public sen-timent
for education has been continued and increased. The work of grading,
organizing and classifying the rural schools has been continued with satisfac-tory
progress. The campaign for education, through bulletins, through the
press and by public addresses, has continued without cessation. The work of
the Woman's Association for the Betterment of Public Schoolhouses and
Grounds has been reorganized and enlarged and more closely connected with
State and county departments of education; without expense to the State a
field secretary has been employed to devote her entire time to this work.
8 Two-Yeaes Progress.
During the period there lias been a decrease of 24 iu the uumber of school
districts without schoolhouses, leaving only 379 districts without houses, a
decrease of 124 in the number of log houses, leaving only 306 log houses, and a
decrease of 25 in the number of small school districts by consolidation. There
has been an increase of 189 in the number of white schools and a decrease of
two iii the number of colored schools employing more than one teacher.
There has been an increase of $216,572 iu the loans for building and improv-ing
public schoolhouses. At the end of the period the loans aggregated $399,-
235.50. With loans made during the period 319 houses have been erected,
valued at $553,716.
The progress summarized above has been along the same lines as heretofore.
Every incomplete school system like ours, however, must gradually grow iu
new directions toward completion. During this period there have been some
distinctive additions to the system and some distinctive progress iu new direc-tions.
Public High Schools.—Under a special act of the General Assembly of 1907
appropriating $45,000 from the State Treasury to aid iu the establishment of
public high schools, 156 of these schools were established during the first
year in SI counties of the State—from one to four in each county—with an
available annual fund for high-school instruction iu each school ranging from
$500 to $1,500. In addition to the general supervision of the State and county
departments of education these high schools are Inspected and supervised by
a most competent State Inspector of High Schools, who devotes his entire time
to this work. During the first year 3,949 country boys and girls were enrolled
in the high-school grades of these schools, and 2,963 of these were iu average
daily attendance. The large majority of these would probably never have
received any high-school instruction, and the balance of them could not possi-bly
have obtained it at so small expense, so near at home and under such safe
and favorable environment. The first step in the direction of placing high-school
instruction, for preparation for life or for college, within easy reach of
the masses of country boys and girls, aud of supplying this necessary link in
the rural educational system of the State, has been taken at last. This, to my
mind, is the most distinctive aud significant educational progress of the period,
and perhaps of this decade. These schools have been established through the
co-operative efforts of the State, the county and the school district in which
they are located, the financial burden of their support being divided equally
among the three. If properly fostered, as suggested in another part of this
report, I have no doubt that they will be found a most effective means of
increasing interest in higher education, of elevating the average of intelligence
among the masses of our rural population and of greatly improving the scholar-ship
of the rank aud file of our rural public school teachers, who will be able
to secure in their own counties at least high-school training for their work.
Compulsory Attendance Act of 1907.—The General Assembly of 1907 also
passed a compulsory attendance law, under the provisions of which compul-sory
attendance for sixteen weeks annually of children between the ages of
eight and fourteen years can be ordered by the county board of education in
any school district, township or county in which a majority of the qualified
voters vote for it in an election ordered upon petition of a majority of such
voters. While the law needs some amendments, which we hope to secure at
the present term of the General Assembly, it is another important step in the
• Two-Yeaes Pkogeess. 9
direction of improving and completing our educational system. Its passage
by representatives of tlie people by a very large majority vote is indicative of
the growing recognition of education as an imperative public duty and a public
necessity, and of the growing demand for the obliteration of illiteracy and the
protection of childhood against it through the conservative intervention, if
necessary, of the strong arm of the law. Several cities and school districts
have voluntarily voted compulsory attendance. If the desired amendments to
the law can be secured at this term of the General Assembly, many more will
doubtless adopt it during the next two years.
Increased Facilities for Training Teachers. — Adequate provision for the
proper training of teachers for the public schools is an absolute necessity of
any modern system of public education. During this biennial period the State
has increased its provisions and strengthened its equipment for training teach-ers.
Under an act of the General Assembly of 1907 the East Carolina Teachers'
Training School has been established at Greenville, N. C. The State appro-priated
$15,000, the county of Pitt voted $50,000 in bonds and the city of Green-ville
voted an equal amount for the purchase of a site and the erection of suit-able
buildings for this school. One of the most beautiful sites in eastern
North Carolina has been secured, and a splendid plant, consisting of four
buildings, is now in course of erection, in accordance with the best plans of
modern school architecture, under the direction of most competent architects.
The school will be ready to open in the fall of 1909.
Valuable additions in the way of building and equipment and increased
appropriations for maintenance have been made to the State Normal and Indus-trial
College and to the other two State teachers' training schools, the Cul-lowhee
Normal and Industrial School and the Appalachian Training School.
The teacher training work in all of these institutions has been strengthened
and enlarged. At the State Normal and Industrial College, the Mclver Memo-rial
Building, one of the most beautiful and best equipped science buildings in
the State, and perhaps in the South, has just been completed at a cost of about
$60,000.
Important Decisions of Supreme Court.—During this biennial period two im-portant
decisions have been rendered by the Supreme Court, the beneficial
effects of which on the future growth and improvement of the public school
system can hardly be estimated.
In Collie v. Commissioners of Franklin County, the Court overruled Barks-dale
V. Commissioners of Samp.son County and all subsequent decisions based
upon that, and held that Article IX. section 3, of the Constitution, requiring
one or more public schools to be maintained in every school district at least
four months in every year and maliing the commissioners indictable for fail-ing
to comply with that requirement, was mandatory, and that, if the State
and county funds from all other sources were insufficient to meet this require-ment,
the county commissioners must levy a special tax on all property and
polls of the county sufficient to provide the necessary funds, as directed in
section 4112 of the public school law. This decision of the Supreme Court has
removed one of the chief obstacles to the advancement of education and the
improvement of the public schools in the smaller and weaker comities. It not
only assures at least a four-months school in every school district : but. as
will be readily seen, it opens the way for providing, by taxation, the necessi-ties
in the way of house and equipment, the proper sort of supervision and
the proper sort of teachers for the maintenance of the proper sort of public
10 Two-Years Peogeess. •
school for four months ; so that the county board of education, with the aid
of the board of county commissioners, can now have as good a school in every
district for at least four mouths each year as the people desire, deserve and
are able, without too burdensome a tax, to provide.
In Perry v. Commissioners of Franklin County, decided at the Fall Term,
1908, the Supreme Court held that a special poll tax levied in a special-tax
school district was neither a State nor a county capitation tax; was, there-fore,
not subject to the limitation of Article V, section 1, of the Constitution,
restricting the combined State and county capitation tax to .$2, and must be
levied and collected, as heretofore, in all special-tax school districts, irrespect-ive
of the amount of the combined State and county capitation tax in that
county. Under this decision there can be, therefore, no question hereafter of
the right to levy and collect special poll taxes as well as special property taxes
in all special-tax school districts. This removes another threatened obstacle
to educational progress in special-tax districts, arising from a misconstruction
of the opinion of the Supreme Court in Collie vs. Commissioners of Franklin
County.
Elsewhere in this report will be found a fuller and more detailed discussion,
a statistical summary and complete statistical tables of the educational work
of the period.
SUMMARY OF WORK TO BE DONE.
Having given a brief survey of tbe worlc done. I desire to present for your
thoughtful consideration a brief summary of some of the important worli to be
done for the improvement of the public schools and the development of the sys-tem
of public education in this State. Iloiieful as is the outlook, encouraging
as has been the progress of the past decade, it must still be apparent to any
thoughtful, observant, interested student of educational conditions in North
Carolina that this great work is scarcely more than well begun, that the sys-tem
is still sadly inadequate to the stupendous task of placing within reach
of all the children of the State such educational opportunities as the age de-mands,
and as most of our sister States and all progressive foreign lands have
already placed within the reach of all thei-r children. A glorious work still lies
before us.
Many new and comfortable schoolhouses are still to be built to take the
place of old, uncomfortable ones ; many more are to be repaired, enlarged and
equipped" and made comfortable and - respectable ; school grounds are to be
beautified ; unnecessary little school districts are to be abolished ; many more
schools with two or more teachers, prepared to give more thorough and more
advanced instruction, must be established ; as soon as the condition of the
roads and the ability of the people will justify it, transportation of children
in the rural districts to larger and better equipped central schools must be
provided. The work of unifying and systematizing the Course of study and
bringing all parts of the public school system into harmonious co-operation
must be carried to conqtletion.
For the improvement of the rank and file of the public school teachers now
engaged in the work and unable to quit to put themselves into long and expen-sive
training for doing better work, a better system of county institutes with
advanced courses of study and trained, conductors, a complete system of county
high schools and of summer schools with courses of study for the public school
teachers at the various State institutions and elsewhere must be provided.
For the preparation of young men and young women for the profession of
teaching and for the elevation of the work to its proper plane of a profession,
the present provisions for teacher training must be fostered and enlarged ; a
properly correlated system of teacher-training schools, beginning with the
county high school and the county teachers' institute, including normal schools
in different sections of the State, and culminating in teachers' colleges for
men and women, must be provided.
County supervision must be strengthened and improved, and the salaries of
county superintendents increased until every county shall have a competent
superintendent, of professional training and practical experience, devoting his
entire time to his work.
Some means must be found and enforced for overcoming nonattendance.
irregularity of attendance and illiteracy by bringing into the school and keep-ing
them there the thousands of children of school age that are never enrolled
or that are enrolled for only a few days each year, and are, therefore, on the
straight road to illiteracy.
12 Work to Be Done.
The public high schools established by the co-operative efforts of State,
county and district must be increased in number until they cover every county.
and enlarged and improved in character until they furnish adequate provision
for the high-school instruction of all the children of the people desiring such
instruction and capable of receiving it, and give to the country children a
chance to get at home preparation for college or better preparation for life,
through a fuller development of their faculties and an increase in their intelli-gence,
power and earning capacity.
In connection with these public high schools, or in separate schools, indus-trial
and agricultural training must be provided for the masses of the children
of a people 82 per cent, of whom are rural and agricultural. In these, courses
of study and training will be provided specially adapted to preparing the thou-sands
of children whose education wall be limited to that obtained in these
schools for doing better the work that needs to be done and that they must do
on farm, in shop and factory, and for living more usefully and more happily the
life that they must live.
Salaries of good teachers must be increased until they are somewhat com-mensurate
with the dignity and importance of the teacher's work, with the
salaries and wages of other professions and other callings, and are sufficient
to command men and women of first-class ability and to justify them in the
investment of sufficient time and money to get first-class training, scholastic
and professional, for their difficult and delicate work.
Means must be devised and enforced for getting more money for all this
needful work, by getting the taxable property on the tax books, securing a
uniform, just and reasonable assessment of it, and supplementing the general
State taxation for school purposes with special State appropriations and
special county, township and district taxation.
Elsewhere in this report will be found a fuller and more detailed discussion
of this work, of the necessity for it, the reasons for doing it, and some sugges-tions
of ways and means of doing it.
RECOMMENDATIONS.
1\) aid ill the accomplisliiuent of the work here outlinerl for the progress
and development of the public school system, I beg to make the following
recommendations
:
1. That there shall be little interference with the present school law, which
I believe to be the best school law that the State has ever had. The people
and the school officers are beginning to become acquainted with the law and
to be familiar with its workings. Some additions seem to be necessary, but
there should be few changes and no radical changes. It will be wise to seek
to continue to progress along the lines already marked out by the present
school law and to begin to have a permanent educational policy.
2. That section 4167 of the Public School Law be so amended as to require
the appropriation of at least two hundred dollars biennially by each county
for conducting one or more teachers' institutes and summer schools in that
county. (See following pages of this report under heading "Improvement of
County Institutes and Summer Schools.")
3. That the special appropriation of $200,000 for the public schools be con-tinued,
because, at present, the special tax that would be required in many
counties to provide even a four-months school, without the aid of this appro-priation
would be so heavy as to be burdensome, amounting in some of the
weaker counties to as much as thirty cents on the hundred dollars valuation
of property and ninety cents on the poll, which, in addition to the eighteen
cents school tax required by the State to be levied, would make a total school
tax of forty-eight cents on the hundred dollars valuation of property ; and the
total school tax in the special-tax districts in these counties would increase
this from ten to thirty cents on the hundred dollars valuation of property.
The State can well afCord to aid .in strengthening and building up the weak
places of the State, as it can be no stronger than its weakest place.
4. That the law regarding the apportionment of the second hundred jthou-sand
dollars be so amended as to require each county receiving aid from this
to raise as much by special tax on all its property and polls for a four-months
school in every district as it received from the second hundred thousand dol-lars
; and that the balance of this second hundred thousand dollars be dis-tributed
by the State Board of Education in such a manner as to equalize, as
nearly as may be, the per capita apportionment in the various counties and
the length of the school term. This plan of distribution, it seems to me. will
be more equitable and will be based upon the principle of requiring the coun-ties
to help themselves at least as much as the State helps them.
5. That section 4119 of the Public School Law be so amended as to make the
term of office of the members of the County Board of Education six years, so
arranged that the term of one member of the board shall expire every two
years. By retaining a majority of old members on the board each year the
possibility of a radical change in the educational policy of the county every
two years will be prevented, and the danger of mistakes from the adminis-tration
of school affairs by new and inexperienced men will be avoidefl. Under
this plan at least two of the three memliers of the County Board of Education,
'l4 Eecommendations.
unless they resign, will have had at all times not less than four years' expe-rience
in the management of the public schools. Under the present plan it
frequently happens that an entirely new board, without any experience or any
acquaintance with the educational conditions and needs of the county, is ap-pointed
every two years. Logically, the term of office of at least a majority
of the members of the County Board of Education should be the same as that
of the State Superintendent and the State Board of Education. The advan-tages
of this change will be apparent as a business proposition to any man of
business experience. The results of the work and plans of the County Board
of Education and County Superintendent cannot be fairly tested in less than
four years.
6. That the General Assembly increase the annual appropriation to aid and
encourage high-school instruction $5,000 for the establishment of public high
schools in the counties that have none now.
7. That the present compulsory attendance law be so amended as to place
it in the discretion of the County Board of Education to order compulsory
attendance for any public school upon petition of a majority of the patrons of
that school, and to order it without petition in districts in which the per cent,
of children of school age in daily attendance upon the public school or some
other school is less than thirty-five per cent.
8. That the General Assembly provide for the establishment of a farm school,
in accordance with the general plan outlined in this report, under the heading,
"Farm-life Schools."
9. That the law regarding the apportionment of the first $100,000 by the
State Board of Education be so amended as to authorize that board to deduct
therefrom annually before apportioning it not to exceed $1,200 for salary and
expenses of an inspector and director of the teacher-training work of the State.
(See reasons for this under heading "Improvement of County Institutes.")
10. That the rural-library law be so amended as to allow the unused balance
of the biennial appropriation of $2,500 for supplementary libraries at the end
of each biennial period to be available for the establishment of additional rural
libraries upon the conditions prescribed for the establishment of these in this
law.
WORK TO BE DONE AND HOW TO DO IT.
Notwitbstaiidiug the encouraging progress along all former lines and the
encouraging beginning along new lines of educational work during the past two
years, as revealed bj' the official reports, the work to be done and the ways and
means of doing it have not been materially changed since my preceding report.
As I discussed most of these subjects somewhat fully and to the best of my
ability in that report, basing my discussion and suggestions on the most careful
study of our educational conditions that 1 have been able to make, I have
deemed it wisest to bring forward, with some changes and additions, parts of
my previous biennial report. This is the work to be done, as I see it; these
are the ways and means of doing it, as I see them. I can do no better than to
cry aloud and spare not until the General Assembly and the people hear and
heed these suggestions or in their wisdom find and adopt some better ways of
doing this needed work.
. Public High Schools.—Every child has the right to have the chance to de-velop
to the fullest every faculty that God has endowed him with. It is to the
highest interest of the State to place within the reach of every child this chance.
By the evidence of the experience of all civilized lauds of the past and the pres-ent,
the study of the higher branches is necessary for the fullest development of
these faculties. I'nless provided in the public schools, instruction in these can-not
be placed within reach of nine-tenths of the children of North Carolina. If
the great masses of our people are to be limited in their education to the ele-mentary
branches only, we cannot hope for any material improvement in their
intelligence and power and any material increase in their earning capacity.
This State cannot expect to compete successfully with those States that have
provided such instruction in their public schools for the highest and fullest
development of all the powers of all their people.
"The old idea that instruction in the public schools must be confined to the
rudimentary branches only, or the three R's, as they were called, was born of
the old false notion that the public schools were a public charity. This notion
put a badge of poverty upon the public-school system that was for many years
the chief obstacle to the progress and development of public education in North
Carolina. The notion still lingers in the minds of a few that at heart do not
believe in the power and the rights of the many. It has no place in a real
democracy. It must give place to that truer idea, accepted now in all pro-gressive
States and lands, that public education is the highest governmental
function—in fact, the chief concern of a good government. This was the con-ception
of our wise old forefathers when they declared in their Constitution
that 'Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government
and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall for-ever
be encouraged,' and when they wrote into their Bill of Rights 'The people
have a right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty of the State to
guard and maintain that right.'
"No man in this age will dare maintain that instruction in the mere rudi-ments
of learning can be called an education or that the people have been
given the right to an education when instruction in these branches only has
been placed within their reach. Under this broader democratic conception of
16 WoEK TO Be Done and How to Do It.
public education and its function tlie obligation of the government to the
poorest is as binding as its obligation to the richest. The right of the poorest
to the opportunity of the fullest development is as inalienable as the right of
the richest. Good government and the happiness of mankind are as dependent'
upon the development of the fullest powers of the poorest as upon the develojv
ment of the fullest powers of the richest. Where the Creator has hidden the
greatest powers no man can know till all have been given the fullest oppor-tunity
to develop all that is in them. Every taxpayer, rich or poor, has an
equal right to have an equal chance for the fullest development of his children
in a public school with the fullest course of instruction that the State in the
discharge of its governmental function is able to provide.
"Public high schools constitute a part of every modern progressive system of
public education. If our system of public schools is to take rank with the mod-ern,
progressive systems of other States and other lands, to meet the modern
demands for education and supply to rich and poor alike equal educational
opportunity, instruction in these higher branches, whereby preparation for col-lege
or for life may be placed within the easy reach of all, must find a fixed and
definite place in the system."
Through the act of the General Assembly of 1907 appropriating $45,000 from
the State Treasury to aid in the establishment of public high schools loG public
high schools in SI counties of the State were established the first year, and
applications for the establishment of many others had to be refused on account
of the insufficiency of the State appropriation. A full report of these schools,
by Prof. N. W. Walker, State Inspector of Public High Schools, is published
elsewhere in this report. I commend it to your careful attention.
Under the law and the rules adopted by the State Board of Education, which
are printed elsewhere in this report, not more than four of these schools can
be established in any one county. No public high school can be established
except in connection with a public school having at least two other teachers in
the elementary and intermediate grades, and the entire time of at least one
teacher must be devoted to the high-school grades. No public high school can
be established in a town of more than twelve hundred inhabitants.
Each district in which a public high school is established is required to dupli-cate
by special taxation or subscription the amount apportioned to the school
from the State appropriation ; and each county, unless the county school fund
thereof is insufficient to provide a four-months school without aid from the
second $100,000, is required to apportion to each public high school out of the
county fund an amount equal to that apportioned to it out of the State appro-priation.
The minimum sum that can be apportioned annually from the State
appropriation for the establishment and maintenance of any public high school
is $250 and the maximum sum $500. The total sum annually available for any
public high school established under this act ranges, therefore, from $500 to
$1,500. The high-school funds can be used only for the payment of salaries of
the high-school teachers and the necessary incidental expenses of the high-school
grades.
No teacher can be employed to teach or can draw salary for teaching any
subjects in any public high school who does not hold a high-school teacher's
certificate covering at least all subjects taught by said teacher in said public
high school, issued by the State Board of Examiners, of which the State Super-intendent
is ex officio chairman. The course of study is prescribed by the State
Superintendent of Public Instruction.
AVoKK TO Be Doxe and How to Do It. 17
As indicative of the need and demand for these schools I beg to call your
attention to the fact that there were applications for many more such schools
than could be established with the appropriation, and that the number of such
applications would have been greatly increased had it not been understood that
the appropriation was already exhausted. As a further striking indication of
the need for them and of the desire among the masses of the country people for
higher instruction, and of their willingness and determination to avail them-selves
of the opportunities placed within their reach for such instruction, I beg
to call your attention to these significant facts, taken from the official reports
of these schools, all of which are in country districts or small towns of less
than twelve hundred people : 3.949 country boys and girls were enrolled in the
high-school grades of these schools during the first j'ear, and of these 2,9G3 were
in average daily attendance ; 2,721 were eni'olled in the eighth grade, or the first
year's work of the high school ; 861 in the ninth grade, or the second year's
work of the high school ; 297 in the tenth grade, or the third year's work of the
high school; 70 in the eleventh grade, or the fourth year's work of the high
school.
Do not the large enrollment and the remarkable average daily attendance of
more than 7.j per cent, of the enrollment in these high schools during the first
year indicate almost a pathetic eagerness of the country boys and girls for
high-school instruction, and a commendable willingness on the part of their
parents to make the sacrifices necessary to give their children a chance to
avail themselves of the opportunities to get it? Do not the large enrollment
in the first year's grade of the high school and the rapidly decreasing enroll-ment
in the higher grades until it is reduced to a mere handful in the highest
grade indicate the pathetic, almost tragic lack of facilities for high-school
instruction in the rural districts heretofore?
Nearly two-thirds of all the boys and girls enrolled in these high schools had
to be enrolled in the lowest grades—were not prepared for any higher grade,
most probably for the. lack of any opportunity heretofore for the study of any
branches beyond the mere elementary branches in public or private schools
within their reach. Is it not more than probable that perhaps nine-tenths of
all these boys and girls enrolled in all the grades of these high schools would
never have had an opportunity for any higher instruction or better prepara-tion
through higher instruction for service and citizenship had not these public
high schools been established within their reach and means?
The State and county cannot afford to ignore this demand and need. An
adequate system of public high schools will be found to be a part of every
modern system of public education in all progressive cities and States in this
country and in all the most progressive and prosperous countries of the world.
It is a need and demand of the age. By no other means than by the public
high school can high-school instrjaction be placed within the reach of the chil-dren
of the many. By no other means than by the rural public high school
can it be placed within the reach of the great majority of the country boys
and girls.
The private high school cannot meet this demand, because the tuition and
other necessary charges for its maintenance place it beyond the means of the
majority of the country boys and girls, and because the number of country
parents who are able to bear these necessary expenses of instruction in private
high schools for their children is far too small to maintain enough of these
18 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
private high schools to be within reasonable reach of more than a very small
minority of the country boys and girls. No one church is able to support
enough of these high schools to place high-school instruction within reasonable
reach or within the financial ability of more than a mere handful of boys and
girls in the rural districts.
The church high school could hardly hope for the patronage of more than the
children of the families accepting its tenets or inclined to its doctrines. For a
complete system of high schools, therefore, that would reach all the children,
it would seem to be necessary for each denomination to maintain a system of
high schools in every county and to have as many systems of high schools in
each county as there are denominations in that county. The impracticability
and expensiveness of meeting adequately the demand for high-school instruc-tion
among the masses of the people, especially in the rural districts, by private
high schools or by church high schools must be apparent, therefore, to any
thoughtful student of rural conditions.
The task of placing high-school instruction within reasonable reach of all the
children of all the people, irrespective of creed or condition, is too great and
too complicated, it seems to me, ever to be successfully performed by church,
private enterprise or philanthropy. If performed at all, it seems to me, it
must be by all the people supporting by uniform taxation a system of public
high schools of sufficient number to be within the reasonable reach of all the
children of every county and community, with doors wide open to the children
of the poor and the children of the rich, irrespective of creed or condition,
affording equality of educational opportuuitj^ to all the children of a republic,
of which equality of opportunity is a basic principle.
The church high school and the private high school will still find a place and
an important work in our educational system, but they can never take the place
or do the work of the public high school for the masses of the people. There
will always be those among us who will prefer the church or private high
school, and who will be able to indulge this preference, but the main depend-ence
of the many for higher education must still be the public high school, sup-ported
by the taxes of all the people, belonging to all the people, within reach
of all the people. God speed the work of the church and the private high
school in this common battle against ignorance and illiteracy. There is work
enough for all to do ; but surely, in a republic like ours, one of the cardinal
principles of which is and must ever be the greatest good to the greatest num-ber,
friends of the church high school and of the private high school will never
undertake to say that all the people must get out of the way of a few of the
people, and that the many public high schools, supported by all the people for
the benefit of all the children, must get out of the way for a few private and
church high schools that can at best hope to reach but a few of the children of
the people.
Future Development of Public High Schools.—There are now from one to
four public high schools in each of eighty-one counties of the State. There
are, therefore, seventeen counties in which no public high schools have yet
been established. As the special annual State appropriation of $45,000 for
these public high schools has been exhausted, I have recommended an increased
appropriation of $5,000 to be used for establishing public high schools in these
seventeen counties. For the proper maintenance and development of these
high schools more money will, of course, be required. On account of the lack
of funds in the State Treasury, the terrible disaster by the floods to the crops
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 19
in a large section of tlie State, and ttie general financial depression, from wliich,
I trust, the State will soon recover, I have deemed it- wisest to ask only for
sufficient increase of the State appropriation to provide for schools in the few
counties that have none now. This appropriation is asked as a matter of jus-tice
to those counties, in order to give them an opportunity to place themselves
upon an equal footing in respect to public high schools with the other counties.
It has seemed to me also that it might perhaps be wisest to wait two years
before asking the State to put any more money into the schools already estab-lished.
By the end of that period we ought to be able to eliminate the high
schools that have not established their right to live by the attendance, the
results obtained and the interest manifested by the people, and to ascertain
where any additional appropriation may be most needed and most wisely and
economically used.
It is our hope to be able within the next two years to select the best high
school in each county, taking into consideration the location, the accessibility,
the environment, etc., and develop this into a real flrst-class county high school,
doing thorough high-school work for four full years. Around this school should
be built a dormitory and a teachers' home. A part of the State Loan Fund
could be used to aid in building the dormitory and tlie teachers' home. The
dormitory, properly conducted, would afford an opportunity for the boys and
girls from all parts of the county to board at actual cost. Many of these could
return to their homes Friday evening, coming back Monday morning. Many of
them who do not have the money to spare to pay their board would probably
be able to bring such provisions as are raised on the farm and have them
credited on their board at the market price. The principal's home would make
it possible to secure a better principal and keep him probably for years, thereby
giving more permanency to the school and more continuity to the work, maliing
a citizen of the teacher and enabling him and his family to become potent fac-tors
in the permanent life of the community, contributing no small part to
uplifting it, morally and intellectually, by their influence. A small room rent
could be charged each student, that would probably afCord sufficient income to
repay the annual installments on the loan for the dormitory. The balance of
the cost of the dormitory, and in some instances all the cost of the dormitory,
could probably be raised easily by private subscription in the community and
county, if the raising of it should be made a condition precedent to the perma-nent
location of such a county high school.
It is my hope to be able to secure during the next two years the development
of a number of these county high schools in the most favorable counties,
equipped with dormitories and teachers' homes, and demonstrate the practi-cability,
the success and the value of them. Having done this, it will be easy
to secure their establishment and development in other counties. The increased
State appropriation which I shall recommend and hope to secure two years
hence should, in my opinion, be used for the development of these central
county high schools, so that we can gradually develop in every county of the
State at least one first-class county high school with dormitory and teachers'
home. Then the other high schools in different sections of the county should
be correlated with this central school, and the bourse of study in these should
be limited probably to not more than two years of high-school work, requiring
all students desiring to pursue the last two years of the fourryears course to
attend the central county high school, which will be fully equipped in all
respects for thorough high-school work.
20 WoEK TO Be Doxe and How to Do It.
These central county high schools, as they grow and develop, should become
also the nuclei for successful Industrial and agricultural training. Parallel
courses of study for the last two years might be arranged, one course oii'ering
thorough preparation for college to the small number of students desiring such
preparation, and the other offering practical industrial and agricultural train-ing
for the large number whose education will end with the high school. The
dormitory would afford a splendid equipment for practice work for the girls in
cooking, domestic science, household economics, etc. ; while the boys, during the
last two years, could have training in agricultural subjects that will fit them
for more intelligent and profitable farming. The practical side of this work
could be supplied by acquiring by purchase or lease a small farm in connection
with the high school. In any event, if it should not seem wisest in the growth
and development of these schools to undertake such a double course of study,
I believe that these central county high schools would in most instances be
found the best and most economical location for county schools of farming and
domestic training, even if such schools should be separate. The two schools
could be most economically and successfully conducted in close proximity to
each other, so as to utilize the same faculty for those cultural subjects that
would be required by both classes of students during most of the first two
years, and some of which would be the same during the last two years of the
high-school course.
All this development must, of course, be a gradual and perhaps a somewhat
slow growth. It is best that it should be. We must be content with the day
of small things. We cannot far outrun the desire, demand and ability of the
people. Our schools must have tlieir roots in the life and needs of the people
and grow out of these. They must not be lifted at once so high above these
that their roots cannot touch them and that the people will be unable to reach
up to them. They must connect with the life and conditions as they now are,
and grow upward slowly, changing these gradually and lifting them upward
with them as they grow.
Thoroughness in Essentials.—The foundation of all education is. of coui'se.
a mastery of the rudiments of knowledge—the elementary branches of reading,
writing, arithmetic and spelling. A knowledge of these and the training and
development which come from the effort necessary for the acquisition of such
knowledge are absolutely essential for every human being. It is folly to talk
about higher education or special training along any line for any useful sphere
of life or work until the children have secured at least this much instruction.
According to the United States Census of 1900, 19.5 per cent, of the white popu-lation
and 47.5 per cent, of the colored population over ten years of age in
North Carolina could not read and write. While I have no doubt that we have
greatly reduced this per cent, of illiteracy during the past eight years, it is still
painfully true that there is yet a large number of illiterates among ws and a
large number of children on the straight road to illiteracy.
A large majority of our country schools are still one-teacher schools. The
average length of our rural school term is still only 87.1 days. Our chief atten-tion
should, therefore, be given to doing thoroughly this foundation work and
making adequate provision for it. If the foundation be not well laid first, the
entire educational structure must fall to pieces.
The law now wisely forbids the teaching of any high-school subjects in any
school having only one teacher. It requires, however, the teaching of thirteen
subjects in these one-teacher schools. It is absolutely impossible for one
WoEK TO Be Done and How to Do It. 21
teacher, with as mauy children as are to be found in the average rural school in
seven grades, to do thorough work in so many subjects. It seems to me that
the number of required subjects should be reduced, and that the teacher in
every one-teacher school should be required to devote more time—in fact, most
of the time—to teaching thoroughly these fundamental essentials of reading,
writing, arithmetic and spelling. It is folly to attempt the impossible. In my
opinion, at least the first four years of the elementary school with only one
teacher should be devoted almost exclusively to these four subjects, sandwich-ing
in just enough of geography, mainly in the form of nature study, talks on
everyday hj'giene, etc., to give a little variety to the course and to furnish some
foundation for a little more extensive work in these and kindred subjects later.
There is more educational value, more acquisition of power and of correct
intellectual habits in a thorough mastery of a few subjects than in a super-ficial
knowledge, a mere smattering, of mauy. The one lays the foundation for
real culture; the other lays the foundation for nothing better than veneering.
I am satisfied that there is great need for a substantial reform along this line
in the required course of study in our elementary schools. The sensible teach-ers
in the one-teacher schools are not attempting to teach this multiplicity of
required subjects, and those who are attempting to teach all of these are failing
to teach any as they should be taught. The law ought not to require a vain and
foolish thing.
Industrial and Agricultural Education.—"Every complete educational system
must make provision also for that training in the school which will give fitness
for the more skillful performance of the multitudinous tasks of the practical
work of the world, the pursuit of which is the inevitable lot of the many, for
that training which will connect the life and instruction of the school more
closely with the life that they must lead, which will better prepare them for
usefulness and happiness in the varied spheres in which they must move. All
these spheres are necessary to the well-being of a complex life like ours. The
Creator, who has ordained all spheres of useful action, has not endowed all with
the same faculties or fitted all for the same sphere of action.
" 'We are all but parts of one stupendous whole.
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.'
"Every wise system of education, therefore, must, beyond a certain point of
educational development, recognize natural differences of endowment and fol-low
to some extent the lines of natural adaptation and tastes, thus co-operating
with Nature and God. The education that turns a life into unnatural channels
and into the pursuit of the unattainable fills that life with discontent and
dooms it to inevitable failure and tragedy. In recognition of these established
laws of Nature and life, manual training and industrial education are begin-ning
to find a fixed and permanent place in systems of modern education.
They have already been given a place in some of the higher institutions of
our public-school system—in the A. and M. College for the white race at
Raleigh, in the State Normal and Industrial College for Women at Greensboro,
and in the A. and M. College for the Colored Race at Greensboro. Under the
new supervision industrial training will be emphasized in the State Colored
Normal Schools at Winston, Fayetteville and Elizabeth City. Some of the city
graded schools, notably those of Durham, Asheville, Wilmington, Winston,
Greensboro and Charlotte, have introduced manual training and industrial
education.
22 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
"This sort of education, liowever, must come as a growth, a development of
a general school system that provides first for the intellectual mastery of those
branches that are recognized as essential for intelligent citizenship and work-manship
everywhere. It must be remembered that the first essential difference
between skilled labor and unskilled labor is a difference of intelligence as well
as of special training ; that a skilled farmer must be first of all a thinking man
on the farm ; a skilled mechanic, a thinking man in the shop ; that a skilled
hand is but a hand with brains put into it and finding expression through it
;
that without brains put into it a man's hand is no more than a monkey's paw
that without brains applied to it a man's labor is on the same dead level with
the labor of the dull horse and the plodding ox ; that a man with a trained
hand and nothing more is a mere machine, a mere hand. The end of education
is first to make a man, not a machine.
"It will be well to remember, also, that industrial education is the most
expensive sort of education, on account of the equipment necessary for it and
the character of the teachers required for it. Teachers prepared for successful
instruction in this sort of education must, of course, be in some sense special-ists
in their line, and always command good salaries. For the majority of the
public schools of the State, therefore, with one-room schoolhouses without spe-cial
equipment and with one teacher without special training, on an average
salary of $32.24 per month, with barely money enough for a four-months term
and for instruction in the common-school branches, with more daily recitations
already than can be successfully conducted, industrial education and technical
training are at present impracticable.
"A study of the history of this sort of education will show that it has come
as a later development, after ample provision had been made for thorough
instruction in the lower and in the higher branches of study, in those schools
that were provided with school funds sufficient for instruction in the ordinary
school studies, for the expensive equipment and for the teachers trained espe-cially
for industrial and technical education. In fact, I think it will be found
that such education has been provided first in the towns and cities and great
centers of wealth and population or in institutions generously supported by
large State appropriations or by large endowments. To undertake such educa-tion
in the ordinary rural schools of the State in their present condition, with
their present equipment and with the meager funds available for them, would
result in burlesque and failure, and would, in my opinion, set back for a gen-eration
or two this important work.
"We might, however, begin to develop our public-school system in that direc-tion
in those communities and counties where the conditions are favorable and
the funds sufiicient, and we might begin to devise ways and means for providing
the necessary funds and making the conditions favorable in other communities.
I trust that means may soon be found for the establishment in every county of
at least one or more schools for industrial and agricultural training. This will
require more money, however, than is now available for public schools, and will
probably require both county and State appropriations. In the meantime it is
proper and wise to cultivate public sentiment for this sort of education, and to
provide for it as rapidly as we shall find ways and means for doing so. In
the meantime, also, we can continue to give in all our public schools elementary
instruction in agriculture and to encourage nature study in the schools. An
admirable little text-book on agriculture has been adopted for use in public
schools, and in the course of study sent out simple nature study has been pro-vided
in every grade."
WoKK TO Be Done and How to Do It. 23
Farm-Life Schools.—-More than eiglit-teuths of our population, according to
the last census, still live on the farms. I hope the day will neveivcome in the
history of the South when a majority of our people will cease to live in the
country. In great crises in the history of every nation the hope, the strength,
the salvation have generally been found in its country people. Its quietude and
peace, affording opportunity for meditation and reflection, for daily communion
with God's great teacher, Nature, giving time for great thoughts and divine
emotions to take deep and everlasting root in human hearts and human charac-ter,
its freedom from mad excitement, from artificiality, from the manifold
temptations of gilded vice, from the effeminating influences of luxury and ex-cessive
wealth, make the country the ideal place for the development of the
strongest type of men and women, and help, I think, to explain the historical
fact that the country always has been the greatest nursery of great men and
women. The old myth of Anti^us representing the earth giant as unconquer-able
so long as the contact between him and his mother earth was not broken
was not all a myth. There was a great truth at the bottom of it, which we in
modern times would do well to heed.
We cannot hope, however, for the more ambitious and aspiring of our country
people to continue to live in the country unless their children can be given an
equal chance for culture and training in the country schools, and unless they
can be taught to make farming more profitable and farm life more attractive
by bringing into it such modern conveniences of life as increased prosperity
alone can command, and enriching it with the higher intellectual and social
pleasures that sweeten, soften, refine and adorn life, impossible without intelli-gence
and intellectual culture. If we would keep the best of the country people
in the country we must find a way to bring the best of modern civilization into
the country without forcing the country people to leave the country to get it.
We must find a way to shape our education for country boys and girls more
toward fitting them for making life on the farm at least as profitable, as pleas-ant,
as attractive and as livable as life anywhere else.
Of course, the first aim of all education is to make a man and an intelligent
citizen. The successful farmer must first of all be- a thinking man, able to
apply his intelligence and training to his business, to mix his brains with his
soil. Our rural schools, therefore, must first of all provide instruction in such
elementary and secondary subjects as the experience of the ages has declared
essential and best for intellectual and moral mastery. Beyond the point of the
acquisition of these essentials, however, I believe it safe and wise to shape the
course of study for the country boys and girls more in the direction of special
eparation for farm life.
With our limited means we have been so busy striving to provide sufficient
elementary and secondary schools to place the essentials of education in reach
of all that we have had neither the time nor the money to give serious atten-tion
to the other problem. I believe, however, that it is time now for us to
face this problem and begin to seek to solve it successfully. Our Agricultural
and Mechanical College and our State Department of Agriculture should be our
chief helpers in working out this problem. I have ventured to make some sug-gestions
about this elsewhere in this report in discussing the future develop-ment
of the public high schools. We should study carefully, also, what has
been done by others, and profit by their successful experience.
From the information that I have been able to get, it seems to me that Wis-consin
has been more successful than any other State in dealing with this
A
24 WoEK TO Be Done axb How to Do It.
problem of providing practical schools at moderate expense for training coun-try
boys and, girls for country life. Years ago they began with one such school
in a small way, with plain and inexpensive buildings and equipment, conducted
at an annual expense of only a few thousand dollars. Fortunately this school
was under the direction of practical, trained teachers instead of faddish spe-cialists.
It took hold of life and conditions in the country as they existed,
busied itself with the practical, everyday problems and tasks of farm life and
work and with finding practical and more profitable ways of doing those. It
had to win its way slowly. The farmers of the county in which it was located
had to be convinced of its value and necessity by results obtained, by the prac-tical
benefits they observed and derived from its work. By keeping in close
touch with them and gathering as many of them as possible about the school
once or twice a year, they were made to feel that it was their school in deed
and in truth, and their hearty co-operation was at last secured. The school
was kept in close touch with the Agricultural and Mechanical College of the
University of Wisconsin and under the general direction of the members of its
faculty.
As the farmers of the county in which it was located saw and felt the
uplifting and transforming power of its work in their homes and on their
farms, they rallied enthusiastically to its support, and it became their pride.
Farmers of other counties began to take notice of its successful work, and
some of the more intelligent of them began to demand a similar school and to
work for it. There are now, I believe, seven of these schools in different sec-tions
of the State of Wisconsin, all closely correlated with the Agricultural and
Mechanical College. They form the most effective means for disseminating
among the masses of the people a knowledge of farming and farm life, that I
am reliably informed has been worth already millions of dollars in increased
products of the farms and in the increased value of those products on account
of their improved quality. What they have been worth in the transformation
of the life in the farm homes, through the knowledge and training given to
hundreds of country girls in these schools, cannot be measured in paltry
dollars.
T believe that the time is ripe for the establishment of at least one such
school in this State—that we have reached, in fact, that point in our educa-tional
development where the establishment of such a school is a necessity for
our guidance in successfully shaping the growth of our educational system in
this direction. In the future we must have in our system real rural schools
and not mere city schools in the country—schools the training in which will
grow more out of rural life, tend more toward rural life and fit better for rural
life.
One such school, in my opinion, is enough at present. It should be located
near our Agricultural and Mechanical College, so as to have the benefit of the
supervision of its trained men and specialists, but it should be in charge, not
of a mere specialist, but of an all-round, intelligent man of special training,
common sense and practical experience and acquaintance with the present
needs and conditions of farm life in the State. All of its equipment at first
should be simple and comparatively inexpensive, such as any one of fifty coun-ties
of the State might provide, and such as the average farmer would not
feel to be entirely out of his reach and entirely out of touch with the present
conditions of life on the farm. Such a school shouV reach down to the level
AVoEK TO Be Done and How to Do It. 25
of present rural life, aud not reach up beyond its possibilities. I believe that
the plant for such a school could be provided for $10,000 or $15,000, and that it
could be maintained at an annual expense of $4,000 or $5,000.
I feel sure that the Farmers' Alliance, the farmers' unions and the other
farmers' organizations of the State, the Agricultural and Mechanical College
and the State Department of Agriculture would heartily co-operate in estab-lishing
such a school, in raising the funds necessary to secure the plant and in
making its work successful.
Illiteracy and Nonattendance and How to Overcome Them — Compulsory
Attendance.—With 175,325 native white illiterates over ten years of age, or
lO.G per cent., according to the United States Census of 1900 ; with 54,208, or
19 per cent., native white illiterates of voting age ; with 45,632 native white
illiterates between ten and nineteen years of age, with only 69.5 per cent, of
the white children between the-ages-of—six_and twenty-one enrolled in the
public'schools and only 43 per cent, of them in regular daily attendance, with
about 137,340 white children between these ages uuenrolled in the public
schools, with North Carolina still standing in the United States Census of
1900 next to the last in the column of white illiteracy, the urgent need of
finding and enforcing some means of changing as rapidlj' as possible these
appalling conditions must be. apparent to every thoughtful, patriotic sou of
the State.* Two means suggest themselves
:
1. Attraction and persuasion. .
2. Compulsory attendance.
Attraction and Persuasion.—"Much has been done, much more can be done,
to increase attendance through the attractive power of better houses and
grounds, better teachers, and longer terms. An attractive schoolhouse and
a good teacher in every district, making a school commanding by its work
public confidence, respect and pride, would do much to overcome nonattend-ance.
The attractive power of improved schools and equipment to increase
attendance is clearly demonstrated by the statistics of this report, which
show, with few exceptions, the largest per cent, of attendance in consoli-dated
districts, rural special-tax districts and entire counties that have the
largest school fund, the longest school terms, and the best schools.
"The general rule seems to be, then, that attendance is in direct propor-tion
to the efficiency of the schools and the school system. I have already
called your attention to. the fact that with the improvement in the public
schoolhouse aud schools, and the increased educational interest during the
past few years, has come also an increase in the per cent, of enrollment and
attendance in the public schools.
"Much can also be done to increase the attendance upon the public schools
by earnest teachers, who will go into the homes of indifferent or selfish parents
whose children are not in school, and by persuasive argument and tact and
appeals to parental pride induce many of these parents to send their children
;
who will seek out children in homes of poverty, and remove, through quiet,
blessed cliarity, the causes of their detention from school. From the census
and from the report of the preceding teacher recorded in the school regis-ter
each teacher can ascertain at the beginning of the session the names
of all illiterates and nonattendants of school age in the district and the
reported causes of nonattendance. Under the rules recommended I)v the
*These figures have, of course, been materially decreased since the U. S. Census of 1900.
/
^\
26 WoEK TO Be Done and How to Do It.
State Superintendent and adopted by luanj- County Boards of Education the
teacher is required to spend two days immediately preceding the opening of
the school in visiting the pareuts and making special efforts to get these chil-dren
to attend school. I have no doubt that many of these can be and will
be reached by these efforts. Much can be done, also, by active, efficient school
committeemen and other school officers, who will take an interest in the
school and aid the teachers in finding and bringing in the children.
"The compelling powder of public opinion will do much to bring children into
the school. Logically as public sentiment for education increases, public
sentiment against nonattendance will increase. Public opinion might, in
many communities, be brought to the point of rendering it almost disgraceful
for parents to keep children at home without excellent excaise during the
session of the schools. Self-respecting parents would be loath to defy such
a public opinion and run the risk of forfeiting the esteem of the best people
of the community.
"It is the tragic truth, however, that there are some parents so blinded by
ignorance to the value and importance of education, and others so lazy,
thriftless or selfish that they cannot be reached by the power of attraction
and persuasion, or the mild compulsion of public opinion.'' It is the sad truth
that tho^&odlQSechildren most need the benefits offered by the public schools
are hardly to be reached by any other means but compulsion.
No stronger or more conclusive evidence of the impossibility of overcoming
illiteracy and nonattendance by the mild means of attraction, persuasion
and public opinion can be found than the fact revealed by this report that
I
the percentage of enrollment and attendance is larger in the rural districts
than in the towns and cities with their superior attractions of better houses,
longer terms, more teachers, trained Superintendents, shorter distance to
travel, paved streets, etc.
Compulsory Attendance.—Knowing the conservatism and the independence
of our people and their natural resentment of the suggestion of compulsion
in anything, I have been slow in reaching the conclusion that a compulsory
attendance law was necessary and wise for North Carolina. A careful investi-gation
of the existing conditions in North Carolina and of the means by which
similar conditions have been effectively remedied in other States and other
countries has forced me to the conclusion that nonattendance, irregularity of
attendance and the resulting illiteracy will never be overcome except by
reasonable, conservative compulsory laws. For seven years and more we have
been building new. attractive, comfortable schoolhouses at the average rate
of more than one a day for every day in the year ; we have been improving
the equipment and increasing in every way the attractiveness of the houses
and grounds ; we have been carrying on a vigorous campaign with considerable
success through a friendly press, through public addresses, through the
widespread circulation of literature for the cultivation of public sentiment and
for the increase of interest and enthusiasm for education ; we have been
increasing expenditures for all educational purposes; we have been .system-atizing
and improving the course of study ; we have been increasing the
compensation, the efficiency and the qualifications of County Superintendents
and teachers; we have been lengthening the school term: County Superin-tendents,
teachers and school officers ;have been increasing their efforts to
increase the attendance, and still thiCusands of white and colored children I thid
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 27
have reuiaiued out of the schools and are now on the straight road to illiteracy.
In spite of all these efforts of attraction and persuasion, the per cent, of
enrollment during the seAcn years, and the per cent, of average daily attend-ance
have been increased hut little.
The tendency of illiteracy is to perpetuate itself. The majority of these
illiterate children are the children of illiterates and perhaps the descendants
of generations of illiterates. It is natural that ignorance and illiteracy, being
incapable of understanding or appreciating the value and the necessity of edu-cation,
should be indifferent and apathetic toward it—just as natural as it
is for the children of darkness to love darkness rather than light. The in-tervention
of the strong arm of the law is the only effective means of saving
the children of illiteracy from the curse of illiteracy. The intervention of
the strong arm of the law is, in my opinion, the only hope of saving also the
children of literate, and sometimes intelligent, parents from the carelessness,
indifference, incompetency, laziness, thriftlessness or selfishness of such pa-rents.
' ""
No child is responsible for coming into the world, nor for his environment
when he comes. Every child has a right to have the chance to develop the
power to make the most possible of himself in spite of his environment during
the helpless and irresponsible period of childhood. No man, not even a parent,
has any right to deprive any child of this inalienable right. This right is
vouchsafed as a constitutional right to every child in North Carolina by the
following clauses of our State Constitution
:
i ''The people have the right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty
of the State to guard and maintain that right." Article I,_Se£tion 27.
"Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and
the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever
be encouraged." Article IX, Section 1.
"Every person presenting himself for registration (to vote) shall be able
to read and write any section of the Constitution in the English language"
(which went into effect December 1, IDOS). Article VI. Section 4.
The right of the State to intervene and protect the child in this right and
to protect itself, society, and humanity against the ignorance of the child is
recognized and clearly set forth m the following clause in the State Constitu-tion
: "The General Assembly is hereby empowered to enact that every child
of sufficient mental and physical ability shall attend the public schools during
the period between the ages of six and eighteen years for a term of not less
than sixteen months unless educated by other means." Article IX, Section 15.
/ Not only has the child a natural and constitutional right to have the chance
I to develop through education the powers that God has given him and thereby
jmake the most of himself, and, therefore, to have the law intervene, if neces-sary,
to secure this right to him, but the taxpayer, also, has a right to de-mand
the intervention of the government that compels him to pay his taxes
for the support of the schools, to secure to him the protection that he pays
for against the ignorance of the child. The government has the right to
intervene, if necessary, to protect itself, society, liberty and property against
the dangers to all to be found in ignorance, according to the experience of
mankind and the evidence of all human history. If it has the right to tax
its citizens for protection, it has the right to adopt the necessary means
to insure, as far as possible, that protection. If the State or the community
28 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
has the right to correct and punish crime and vice, so often resulting from
ignorance and illiteracy, it ought to have the right to take the necessary steps
to remove the cause. Prevention is cheaper and better always than correction
and punishment.
Compulsory attendance laws are the only means found effective by other
States and other counti'ies of the world for overcoming illiteracy or largely
reducing it. Practically all important foreign countries, except the ignorant
countries of Russia, Spain, and Turkey, have found it necessary to adopt com-pulsory
attendance laws in order to overcome illiteracy, and have found them
effective in overcoming it. Thirty-five of the 4G States of the American Union
have been compelled to resort tcTThe same means of overcoming it, and are
finding the means effective. Illiteracy is least in the States and countries that
have compulsory attendance laws, and greatest in those that have not. West
Virginia and Kentucky are the only States which may be called Southern
that have such laws. Eighteen per cent, of the total white population of the
United States reside in the Southern States ; 33 per cent, of all the white
illiterates of the United States reside in the Southern States. The compulsory
attendance States and countries contain more than 80 per cent, of all tho
people of the world that we call enlightened and progressive, and are the
greatest, richest, and most progressive people in the world. No State or
country in modern times, so far as I have been able to ascertain, has ever
repealed a compulsory attendance law after it was once enacted. If such
laws have been found beneficial and effective in all these great States and
countries, will they prove otherwise for North Carolina? One of the most
striking illustrations of the effectiveness of compulsory attendance laws in
reducing illiteracy is that of France. In 1882 a compulsoxy education act
went into effect. At that time 31 per cent, of the French people were illit-erate
; in 1900, the illiteracy had been reduced to 6 per cent. As bearing
upon the question of effectiveness of compulsory attendance laws in reduc-ing
or overcoming illiteracy, the following tables of comparative illiteracy in
typical Southern States that have no compulsory attendance laws and typical
New Englaiid and Western States that have such laws will be interesting and
suggestive
:
*Table a.—Native White Illiterates Over Ten Years of Age.
Per Ct.
Southern States 959,799 12.4
Virginia 95,583 11.4
North Carolina 175,-325 19.6
South Carolina 54,177 13.9
Georgia 99,948 12.2
Mississippi 35,4.32 8.1
Massachusetts 3,912 0.5
Rhode Island 1.196 1.0
Connecticut 1,958 0.6
Michigan 12,154 1.5
*These tables are taken from an excellent paper on Compulsory Education by Prof. W. H. Hand,
printed in the " Proceedings of the Eighth Conference for Education in the South." They are
based on the U. S. Census of 1900.
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 29
*Table B.—Native White Illiterates of Voting Age.
Per Ct.
Southern States 307,23G 12.2
Virginia 35,057 12.5
North Carolina 54,208 19.0
South Carolina 15,643 12.6
Georgia 31,914 12.1
Mississippi 11,613 8.3
Massachusetts 1,927 0.6
Rhode Island 550 1.2
Connecticut 1,040 0.9
Michigan 6,406 2.2
*Table C.—^Native White Illiterates Between Ten and Fifteen
Years of Age.
Southern States 262,590
Virginia 23,108
North Carolina 45,632
South Carolina 17,839
Georgia 25,941
Mississippi 10,212
Massachusetts 416
Rhode Island 100
Connecticut 160
Michigan- 1,141
As bearing upon the effect of illiteracy upon immigration the following table
will 'be suggestive. The first column gives the natives of the given State now
living in other States ; the second column gives the residents of the given
State born in other States ; the third column gives the loss or the gain the
given State has sustained. In this table the total population is included
:
Southern States* 3,421,660 2,762,508 659,152 Loss
Virginia 587,418 132,166 455,252 Loss
North Carolina 329,625 83,373 246,252 Loss
South Carolina 233,292 54,518 178,774 Loss
Georgia 410,299 189,889 220,410 Loss
Mississippi 296,181 215,291 80,890 Loss ^ Massachusetts 299,614 401,191 101,577 Gain ^'
Rhode Island 61,358 78,903 17,545 Gain
Connecticut 142,254 150,948 8,694 Gain
Michigan 288,737 407,562 118,825 Gain
The tide of emigration has evidently tlowed from illiterate to literate ; from
ignorance to intelligence ; from darkness to light.
To sum up, in view of the fact that only 69.5 per cent, of the total school
population of the State, 71.6 per cent, of the,., white and 65^2- per cent, of the
*These table.s are taken from an excellent paper on Compulsory Education by Prof. W. H. Hand,
printed in the " Proceeding's of the Eighth Conference for Education in the South." They are
based on the U. S. Census of 1900.
30 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
colored, is ever eurolled iu the public schools and only about 45 j}^-.jse»t. of
the white school population and 3bout.jaS-^p»ii-«eiit^ of the colored is in daily
attendance ; in view of the large number of illiterates, white and colored, and
of the large number of children of school age on the straight road to illiteracy
in North Carolina, can any honest citizen doubt the need of the intervention
of the strong arm of the law through compulsory attendance to overcome such
conditions? In view of the constitutional provisions guaranteeing to every
child the privilege of education and imposing upon the State the duty to
provide it and encourage the means for it, and of the constitutional amendment
recently adopted prescribing an educational qualification for suffrage and
citizenship ; in view of the divine right ^of every child to make the most
possible of himself in spite of any sort of environment in childhood, for which
he can in no sense be held responsible, can any citizen fail to recognize the con-stitutional
and the natural right of every child to have guaranteed to him the
opportunity to get an education and the duty of the law to intervene to pre-vent
any man from depriving any child of this natural and constitutional right?
"TrTview of the fundamental fact established by the experience of mankind that
in universal education is to be found the best protection to life, liberty and
property, and that, therefore, it is right and wise for the government to tax
every citizen to provide the means of universal education, and thereby secure
protection to himself and to every other citizen : in view of the further fact that
every citizen taxed for this purpose has the right to demand from the govern-ment
compelling him to pay the tax the protection that he has paid for against
the ignorance of every child, can any reasonable man doubt the right and the
duty of the State and the community to compel the child to use the means
of protection provided and to intervene to prevent the parent from preventing
the child from using them? In view of the further fact that compulsory attend-ance
laws are the only means found effective in all other States and in all
foreign countries for reducing and overcoming illiteracy, is not any reasonable
man forced to the conclusion that North Carolina will be compelled to resort
to the same means in order to bring all of her children into the schools pro-vided
for them and thus reduce illiteracy and secure to every child his right,
to the government its safety, and to the taxpayer the protection that he pays
for?
There is already considerable sentiment in the State for a compulsory attend-ance
law, and the sentiment seems to be increasing. 'The conditions are so
different in different sections and different counties of the State that it might
not be wise to pass a State compulsory attendance law and undertake to put
it into -operation at once in every part of the State. It is safest not to force
public opinion, but to cultivate it along right lines with patience and persistence
and tact. In communities and counties in which the conditions are favorable
for it, and in which a healthy public sentiment demands it or can be brought
to demand it, I can see no good reason now why compulsory attendance should
not be enacted and enforced. There are already many such communities, and
even some entire counties. I beg to suggest, therefore, for your consideration
the enactment of a mild, reasonable, conservative compulsory attendance law
requiring all children to attend the public schools, unless attending some other
school, at least four months or more each year between the ages of eight and
fourteen years. All the machinery necessary for the successful execution of
this law could be set out in the act and then a proviso could be added authoriz-ing
the County Board of Education of any county, upon petition or vote of a
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 31
majority oi; the patrons of any public school, or of the taxpayers or qualified
voters of auy public school district or any township or any county to put the
law into execution for said school, said district, said township, or said county.
If deemed wisest, the act could give the County Board the discretion of acting
upon the matter by petition or of submitting it to a vote in an election to be
ordered by them.
Compulsory Attendance Act of 1907.—The General Assembly of 1907 passed
a compulsory attendance law, embodying the above suggestions except as to
the petition. If the Assembly of 1909 will amend the present law as recom-mended
elsewhere in this report, by inserting the petition clause, making it
possible to secure compulsory attendance in small areas prepared for it and
needing it, without the delay and the formality and the expense of an election,
many districts will adopt it during the next two years. The practicability and
success of it can thus be demonstrated and compulsory attendance, stimulated
by these successful examples, will, I believe, spread like a blessed contagion
in a few years over the entire State.
Improvement of Teachers and Increase of Teachers' Salaries.—"Without
the vitalizing touch of a properly qualitied teacher, houses, grounds and
equipment are largely dead mechanism. It is the teacher that breathes the
breath of life into the school. Better schools are impossible without better
teachers. Better teachers are impossible without better education, better
training, and better opportunities for them to obtain such education and train-ing.
Better education and better training and the utilization of better oppor-tunities
for these by teachers are impossible without better pay for teachers.
Reason as we may about it, gush as we may about the nobility of the work
and the glorious rewards of it hereafter, back of this question of better
teachers must still lie the cold business question of better pay.
"The average salary of rural white teachers in North Carolina in 1908
was $32.24; the average salary of colored teachers was $22.48; the average
length of the rural school term was 89.2 days for white and 82.1 days for col-ored
; making the average annual salary of rural white teachers in North Caro-lina,
therefore, $143.84 and the average «iunual salary of rural colored teachers
$02.35. For such meager salaries men and women cannot afford to put them-selves
into the long and expensive training necessary for the best equipment
for this delicate and difficult work of teaching. The State may supply the
best opportunities that the age affords for the training of the teachers, but,
as long as the rank and file of them receive such meager salaries, these
opportunities will be beyond their reach and they must inevitably divide
their attention between the service of two masters to make even a bare
living. As long as they must work at some other business for six or eight
months of the year, and at the business of school-teaching for only four
or five months, they, can scarcely hope to become professional and masterful
teachers. The teacher who does something else eight months of the year for
a living and teaches school four months of the year for extra money must
continue to be more of something else than of a teacher.
"With short school terms, small salaries, poor schoolhouses, and other con-ditions
adverse to success, we cannot hope to command and retain first-class
talent in this business of teaching the rural school, however good or however
accessible the opportunities for improving teachers may be made. We must,
in the outset, face the cold business truth that, as the South comes more and
more rapidly into her industrial and agricultural heritage, and the channels
32 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
of profitable employment multiply, the best men and women in the profession
of teaching cannot be retained in it, and little inducement will be offered to
other men and women of ambition, ability and promise to enter it unless the
compensation for the teacher's service is made somewhat commensurate with
that offered in other fields of labor. As long as the annual salary paid the
teacher who works upon the immortal stuff of mind and soul is less than that
paid the rudest workers in wood and iron, less than that paid the man that
shoes your horse or plows your corn or paints j-our house or keeps your jail,
the best talent cannot be secured and kept in the teaching profession—the
teaching profession must continue to be made in many instances but a stepping-stone
to more profitable employments or a means of pensioning inefficient and
needy mediocrity.
"The first step, then, in tlie direction of improvement of teachers is an
'' increase in the salary of teachers so as to make it worth the while of capable
men and women to enter the profession of teaching, to remain in it, to put
themselves in training for it, and to avail themselves of the opportunity
offered for improvement. An increase in the monthly compensation and an
increase in the annual school term are the only two ways of increasing the
teacher's salary. The only means of increasing the compensation and the
school term is by increasing the available school funds for each school. The
only practical means of doing this under present conditions are consolidation
and local taxation.
"That the counties and districts that pay the best salaries secure, as a
rule, the best teachers, is the best evidence that this question of better teachers
is largely a question of better salaries. With the growth of educational senti-ment
and enthusiasm the demand for better teachers has grown, but every
community that demands a better teacher ought to remember 'that the de-mand
is unreasonable and vmlikely to be met unless the means for better pay
be provided by the community.
"The raising of the standard of examination and gradation of teachers will
be ineffective, and perhaps unfair, unless it is accompanied by a corre-sponding
increase in the wages of teachers. Of what avail will it be to
raise the requirements without raising the compensation, when even now,
with the present low standard of qualifications, it is almost impossible in
many counties to get enough teachers to teach the schools, and when even
now the same qualifications will command much better compensation in
almost any other vocation? The logical result of raising the standard of
examination and gradation without raising the prices paid would be to de-crease
the supply of teachers and render it practically impossible to supply
the schools with teachers. An increase in the requirements for teaching, a
multiplication of the opportunities for the improvement of teachers, and a
mandatory requirement of teachers to avail themselves of these opportuni-ties,
must in all reason and fairness be accompanied by a corresponding in-crease
in salary. Better work deserves and commands better pay."
The increase in teachers' salaries during the past ten years has not been
at all commensurate with the increase in living expenses, and with the
increase in salaries and wages of those engaged in other professions and
callings. In considering this question of the salary of the teacher, it must
be remembered that the teacher must live twelve months in the year, even
though he receives salary for only four or five or six months. The financial
demands upon the teachers must also be remembered. They must live and
Work to ]>e Done and How to Do It. 33
dress well ia order to command the respect of the children and the patrons.
To maintain their professional growth and increase the effectiveness of their
work, they must spend a considerable part of their salary for special courses
of work in summer schools and institutes, and for the purchase of profes-sional
books and magazines. It must be remembered, also, that teachers must
look forward, to the years when it will be impossible for them to teach, for,
as they grow old, they become less efficient for the arduous work of the school.
Their salaries, therefore, should be sufficient to lay aside something for old
age, as no pensions are provided for teachers. Finally, it should be remem-bered
that in a republic the intelligence, morality, power, effectiveness, and
earning capacity of the common people are dependent largely upon the work of
the teachers of the public schools, and that, therefore, their work is of the
most vital importance and should command a salary commensurate with its
importance. Unless we can bring our people to a realization of these ti'uths
and thereby create a public sentiment and a public demand for better salaries
for better teachers, the ranks of the rural school teachers will continue to
be tilled with many untrained, incompetent, inexperienced persons, using
this holiest of callings as a mere stepping-stone to some other profession or
calling, with mere tyros without serious purpose, teaching for a short time
simply to make a support until something better turns up. There will con-tinue
to be a dearth of men, because they can command better salaries for
almost anything, even for breaking rocks on the road, than for teaching rural
schools a few months in the year. There will continue to be a dearth of
trained and experienced women of power, because such women can now easily
command far better salaries in other callings open -to women, and almost any
woman can command a larger annual salary for measuring calico and selling
bxittons than for training minds, inspiring souls and forming characters in
the rural schools. The situation is serious. The demand for good teachers,
and especially for good male teachers, is greatly in excess of the supply,
because the salaries paid will not command and retain such teachers. Let us
wage a campaign from mountain to sea, through press and public speech, for
the education of public sentiment to an appreciation of the teacher's work
and to an insistent demand 'for better compensation for that work.
Improvement of County Institutes and Summer Schools.—"In the mean-time,
some means must I>e found for placing at small expense within easy
reach of the rank and file of the teachers the best possible opportunities for
improvement under present conditions. These opportunities must be carried to
the teachers. They cannot afford to go far nor to spend much money to get
them. I am satisfied, therefore, that the county institute, the county teachers'
association, and the summer school are at present the only practical means of
reaching and helping the majority of the poorly paid rural public school teach-ers
of the State. These institutes should be a combination of an institute and
a summer school, affording the teachers an opportunity to increase their knowl-edge
of the subjects taught and to learn by practical talks and object lessons
better ways of teaching them. They should continue not less than two weeks
nor more than a month. They should be held in every county at least once in
two years, and attendance upon them should be, as now, compulsory.
"Heretofore the work of these institutes has been desultory. There has
been no systematic or uniform plan of work. There has been no progressive
and continuous development in the work. The institutes have been conducted
34 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
by differeDt teachers in different ways in different counties each year, some-times
conducted by men and women without experience or special fitness
for such worlv, generally conducted by teachers with whom this work is a
mere incident to their regular work, adopted as a means of supplementing
their salaries during the vacation months. Four or five thousand dollars are
spent annually by the countjes in this desultory work. Section 4167 of the
School Law now vests in the State Superintendent the power to appoint the
institute conductors and provides for the appropriation of not more than two
hundred and fifty dollars by each county for institute work. If this section
were amended so as to require each county to appropriate at least two hundred
dollars for a county institute and summer school once in two years, the State
Superintendent has in mind a plan by which he could easily organize this
institute and summer school' work upon such a basis as would enable him to
employ trained men and women for it.
"Under this plan the work could be organized in such a way as to supple-ment
and give effectiveness to the professional work carried on through the
manuals for teachers, issued as bulletins from time to time by the State
Department of Public Instruction. A systematic, progressive course of insti-tute
work could be arranged and put into successful execution whereby the
teachers would receive credit for the work done each year, and the same
teachers, after having completed one year's work, would not be required to
go over the same ground in the next institute. The successful completion of
the entire course of two or three years of institute and summer school work
might lead to the issuance of longer term certificates valid in other counties
of the State, and possibly to excusing from future compulsory attendance upon
county institutes and summer schools. In this way definiteness and direction
could be given to this work, greater incentive would be given the teachers
to attend and greater benefits in every way would be derived by attendance.
Much less difficulty, I have no doubt, would be experienced in securing attend-ance,
and there would be much less complaint about compulsory attendance.
"Under this plan the institute and summer school work would cost but little
more than it now costs. Much more effective institutes and summer schools,
with much more efficient conductors, would be held in every county of the
State for a longer term at least once in two years at a biennial expense
of about two hundred dollars to the county. Not one cent of State appro-priation
would be necessary. The only change in the School Law necessary to
secure this great improvement in the institute and summer school work
would be a change of section 4167 thereof so as to make the appropriation of
two hundred dollars by each county for institute and summer school work
mandatory once in two years instead of permissive, as at present.
"Other means of placing the opportunities of improvement within easy reach
of the rank and file of the teachers are the manuals on teaching the different
subjects issued as bulletins from the^Department of Public Instruction, county
teachers' associations, and a State Teachers' Reading Circle. The work of
these s:hould be correlated with the work of the county institutes and summer
schools. In the county associations, and in the institutes, and in the examina-tions
for teachers' certificates, the teachers could be held responsible for the
work outlined in the teachers' manuals and in the course of study sent out
beforehand for the county institute, and in this way could be somewhat pre-pared
beforehand for the work of the institute. In this way a competent
County Superintendent, whose salary justified his giving his time to the
WoKK TO Be Done and How to Do It. 35
work, could carry on all the year the same sort of work in teacher-traiuing
as is carried on by a competent superintendent of a town or city system of
schools, and the institute when it came would but enlarge and give effective-ness
and better direction to his work. As suggested above, teachers could be
incited and stimulated to carry on the work by being held responsible for it
in the examinations and institutes, and by having credit given for it in these
examinations and in longer term certificates valid in other counties."
By the addition of $1,200 to the amount now paid for salary and expenses
of a superintendent of the three colored normal schools, which position has
been made vacant by the death of the former Superintendent, Prof. John
Duckett, a man of the best professional training and experience could be em-ployed
as general superintendent and inspector of the entire teacher-training
work of the State. Such a man could organize, direct and supervise the entire
work of the county teachers' institutes and of the county teachers' associa-tions.
In co-operation with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction,
he could select carefull.v the force of institute conductors for summer work,
hold conferences with these for unifying and systematizing their work and
aid them in many ways in it. He could be of invaluable assistance to the
County Superintendents in directing and systematizing the work of the county
teachers' associations, preparing and issuing, through the Department of Pub-lic
Instruction, from time to time, professional bulletins for the direction and
stimulation of all the professional home study and training of the rank and
file of the rural teachers. He could be of invaluable assistance to the normal
schools and the Normal College, in aiding greatly to correlate their work and
keep it in close touch with the work of the county institutes and teachers'
associations and with the needs of the country teachers. In other words, he
would be a most valuable connecting link between all the parts of the teacher-training
work of the State from bottom to top.
I have recommended elsewhere that this additional $1,200 can easily be
provided without additional appropriation by authorizing the State Board of
Education to deduct it from the first hundred thousand dollars appropriated
by the State for the public schools. The loss of this would scarcely be felt by
any county, being an average of only about $12 to the county ; and the ben-efits
of it would be shared by the County Superintendent and all the teachers
of every county.
County Supervision.—"As pointed out in the first part of this report, there
has been marked improvement in county supervision. The average salary
of the County Superintendent has been more than doubled sine? 1901. The
Superintendents in nearly all the counties of the State are devoting more
time to the work than ever before, but there is still much work to be done
before county supervision can be made as efficient as it should be. The more
I learn of the educational work of the State in the discharge of my official
duties and through my visitations and field work, the more clearly I see that
the real strategic point in all this work to-day is the County Superintendent.
Upon this subject I beg to quote from my annual address to the State Associa-tion
of County Superintendents delivered November 11, 1903 : 'The work of
the State Superintendent must be done and his plans executed largely through
the County Superintendent. ' The work of the County Board of Education
must be carried on and its plans executed largely through the County Superin-tendent.
The work of the School Committeemen will not be done properly
without the stimulation and direction of the County Superintendent. No
36 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
proper standard of qualifications for teachers can be maintained and eii-forced
except by the County Superintendent. No esprit de corps among the
teachers can be awaliened and sustained save by a County Superintendent in
whom it dwells. No local and permanent plans for the improvement of public
school teachers through county teachers' associations, summer institutes and
schools, township meetings, etc., can be set on foot and successfully carried
out save under the leadership of an energetic County Superintendent. All
campaigns for the education of public sentiment on educational questions and
for the advancement of the work of public education along all needful lines
are doomed to failure or, at least, to only partial and temporary success
without the active help and direction of a County Superintendent knowing his
people, knowing the conditions and needs of his county, knowing something of
the prejudices and preferences of the different communities, endowed with
tact, wisdom, common sense, character, grit, and some ability to get along
with folks, and enjoying the confidence of teachers, ofBcers. children, and
patrons. Upon the County Superintendent mainly must depend the bringing
together of all those forces In the county—public and private, moral and
religious, business and professional—that may be utilized for the advancement
of the educational work of the county and for the awakening of an educational
interest among all classes of people, irrespective of poverty or wealth, religion
or politics. This work of educating the children of all the people is too great a
task to be performed by any part of the people. No real county system, com-posed
of a large number of separate schools unified and correlated in their
work, each pursuing a properly arranged and wisely planned course of study
in the subjects required, and the whole system fitting into its proper place in
a great State system, can ever be worked out save through the aid and under
the direction of a County Superintendent with an adequate conception of his
work and with an ability to do it.'
"Such a work requires for its successful execution a man of mind and
heart and soul, a gentleman, a man of common sense, tact, energy, consecrated
purpose, education, special training, and business ability—a man who can give
all his time and thought and energy to the work. You cannot command the
services of such a man in any business without paying him a living salary, for
such men are in great demand for any work. May we not hope, therefore,
that at no distant day the salary attached to so important an oflSce may be
sufficient in every county to employ trained and competent men for all their
time, to unfetter the earnest, competent men already engaged in the work so
that they may have a chance to do their best work and show what is in them,
and to justify men in the coming years in placing themselves in special train-ing
for this special work?
"It is noticeable and significant that educational progress along all lines is
more rapid in those counties in which competent Superintendents have been
put into the field for all their time, and that in almost every county in which
this has been done the school fund has been increased by local taxation and
by economical management of the finances, looking carefully after the sources
of income, much more than the increase in the salary of the Superintendent.
For example, in Guilford County, the Superintendent's salary was increased
$1,000 a year, and during the fii-st year of his administration, largely through
his efforts, the annual school fund was increased by local taxation alone
$7,745. In Pitt County the efficient Superintendent was put into the field for
his entire time at increased salary, and already the annual increase in the
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 37
school fuud from local taxation, secured maiuly through his activity, is much
more than the increase in his salary, to say nothing of the remarkable increase
in the efficiency of the entire county system of schools resulting from his more
efficient work. Similar evidence could be given about other counties. You
cannot make a success of any gi-eat business like this business of education
without a man at its head devoting all his time, thought and energy to it.
Wherever this is the case the educational work of the county is moving,
wherever it is not the case the work is lagging. You cannot do anything
worth doing in the world without a man. It is the highest economy to put
money into a man."
More Money and How to Get It.—For all this work yet to be done in the
way of building and improving schoolhouses and grounds, lengthening the
school term, increasing the salaries of teachers and County Superintendents,
providing high-school instruction, etc., more money must, of course, be pro-vided.
Two ways of providing this money may be suggested
:
1. The adoption and enforcement of some plan for getting taxable prop-erty
on the tax books and assessing it at its real value, or something near its
real value. An examination of the tables of the statistical reports in this
volume showing the school funds raised in each county from the property tax
of eighteen cents on the hundred dollars and of the list of counties asking aid
from the special State appropriation for a four-months school term, and the
amounts received by these counties from this appropriation, will convince any
reasonable man, I think, that there is something wrong in the method of
assessing the value of property. Fifty-four counties now receive aid in amounts
varying from $95.25 to $4,462.09 for a four-months school term. Upon any
reasonable and uniform valuation of property, many of these counties would
have money enough for a four-months school term without any aid from the
special State appropriation, and the others would need much less from this
source. Much of this special appropriation could then be available for other
needed purposes in strengthening the public. school system. To one who has
traveled through many of these counties and observed their prosperity and
rapidly increasing wealth, it is self-evident that there is something wrong in
the method of assessing property, when counties like Cleveland, Cumberland,
and a number of others that might be mentioned, fail to receive from an
eighteen cents property tax enough money for a four-mouths school term
at the present low salaries of teachers. Upon a correct valuation of property,
of course, the school fund derived from this eighteen cents property tax would
be largely increased in every county. In my opinion, if all the property in the
State could be placed on the tax books at a fair and reasonable valuation, the
public school fund would be sufficient to maintain the public schools of the
State for an average school term of five or six months without any increase
of the present rate of taxation for school purposes.
2. The second means for getting more money for the schools is by special
county taxation. As explained in another part of this report, under the decis-ion
of the Supreme Court in the case of Collie v. Commissioners of Franklin
County, the county commissioners, upon demand of the County Board of Edu-cation,
are required to levy a special tax on all property and polls of the
county sufficient to provide at least a four-months school term in every school
district of the county, as directed by Article IX, Section 3, of the Consti-tution.
In their estimate of the additional funds necessary for this purpose
to be raised by a separate county tax, the County Board of Education can, of
38 Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
course, take into consideration tlie needs of tlie schools for their gradual and
conservative improvement in equipment, supervision, teachers, etc. This opens
the way for a sufficient increase in the school fund in the weali counties to
increase greatly the efficiency of the schools in those counties.
Local Taxation.—"This business of public education is like any other great
business. For successfully conducting it, enough capital must be invested in it
to supply the necessary equipment and to employ the necessary number of com-petent
trained men and women to carry on the business according to mod-ern
progressive business and professional principles. I have undertaken to
show in this report that for better houses and equipment, better teachers,
better supervision and longer school terms more money is the fundamental
need. The constitutional limit of taxation has already been reached in
all the counties of the State but one. Without an amendment to the Con-stitution,
therefore, or special legislation for each county, the general school
fund cannot be increased except for a four-Jiionths term. A special annual
State appropriation of two hundred thousand dollars has already been made to
the public schools by the General Assembly. Under present conditions the State
can hardly be expected to increase the school fund for a four-months term fur-ther
by special appropriation. It must be very evident, therefore, to every
thoughtful man that in addition to the methods suggested above the only other
two means of supplying this fundamental need of more money for the public
schools are consolidation and local taxation. As heretofore shown in this
report, by reasonable consolidation the present available funds can be greatly
economized by reducing the number of schools and the number of teachers
necessary to teach a given number of children. In this way more money
from the present funds will be available for each school for more teachers,
better salaries, better houses and equipment, and a longer term. After mak-ing
the present available funds go as far as possible through the economy of
reasonable consolidation, the only other means of increasing the school fund
of any local school is local taxation.
"Under section 4115 of the School Law, upon a petition of one-fourth of the
freeholders residing therein, a special-tax district may be laid off within any
definitely fixed boundaries, and upon approval of the County Board of Educa-tion
an election upon a local tax for the schools within that district, not to
exceed thirty cents on the hundred dollars and ninety cents on the poll, must
be ordered by the County Board of Commissioners. This places an election
upon local taxation for public schools within easy reach of any county, town-ship,
or school district in North Carolina. I have already reported the
progress in local taxation during the past two years. While it is encouraging,
still, when it is remembered that only about 719 districts out of a total of
about 5,338 white districts in the State have yet adopted local taxation, it
will be readily seen that the work of local taxation is scarcely more than well
begun.
"Sixty-nine per cent, of all the money raised for public schools in the United
States is raised by local taxation. Nearly one-fifth of all the funds expended
for the maintenance of the public schools in North Carolina is now raised by
local taxation. In all the States having systems of public schools well
equipped and adequate to the education of all their people, a large per cent,
of the public school fund is raised by local taxation. In some of these States
as much as 95 per cent, is raised by local taxation. In North Carolina the
only towns, cities, and rural communities that have succeeded in providing
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 39
a system of schools opeu eight or teu months iu the year, adequately equipped
with houses and teachers, have been compelled to supplement their State and
county school funds by local taxation. The experience of other States and of
these communities in our own State compels the conclusion that the only hope
of largely increasing the present available funds for the rural schools, and thus
making these schools equal to the demands of the age and adequate to the
education of 82 per cent, of our population, is to be found in the adoption of
local taxation.
"The principle of local taxation is right and wise. It involves 'the princi-ples
of self-help, self-interest, self-protection, community help, community inter-est,
and community protection. Every cent of the money paid by local taxation
for schools by any community remains in the community for the improvement
of the community school, and every cent of it is invested through a better school
in the minds and souls and characters of the rising generation, in an increase
in the intelligence and efficiency of the entire community. Every cent of this
local tax that goes into a better school to give the children of all a better
chance to be somebody and to do something iu the world is invested in the best
possible advertisement for the best class of immigration and is the surest
possible means of keeping in the community the best people already residing
there by giving them a better opportunity to give their children a better chance
to get an. education that will better fit them for coping with the world with-out
having to move into another community to get it. Every cent of money,
therefore, invested by local taxation iu a better school, by inviting a better
class of immigration and preventing the disastrous drain upon its best blood
by other communities that offer better school facilities, enhances the value
of every cent of property in the community by increasing the demand for it
by the best people. The wisdom, then, of such a tax for such a purpose is too
manifest to need further argument."
Schoolhouses.—There are still 247 white and 132 colored school districts
in North Carolina to be supplied with houses. There are 111 white and 195
colored log houses and many old frame houses unfit for use to be replaced.
There are hundreds of old houses to be repaired, enlarged, equipped, and beau-tified.
The equipment of most of the old houses is poor and entirely inadequate.
Some idea of the inadequacy of this equipment may be obtained when it is re-membered
that in 190S only .$38,473.27 was spent for furniture and equipment
for rural schoolhouses. A comfortable, well-equipped schoolhouse is the first
essential of a successful school. Such a house insures permanency and inspires
in children and patrons pride and confidence.
In every county there should be a strict enforcement of the law placing the
building of schoolhouses under the control of the County Board of Educa-tion
and requiring all new houses to be constructed in accordance with plans
approved by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction and that board.
A revised and enlarged pamphlet of approved plans for schoolhouses has
been recently issued from the office of the State Superintendent of Public
Instruction, and copies of it can be secured upon application. The pamphlet
contains bills of materials, si>ecifieations, cuts, floor plans, blanlj contracts,
etc., for the erection of any house in it.
The law requiring the contract for buildings to be in writing and the house
to be inspected, received, and approved by the County Superintendent before
full payment is made, should always be rigidly enforced. No more money
should be allowed to be wasted on cheap, temporary, improperly constructed
40 Work to Be Done axd How to Do It.
houses. Properly enforced, the law is now ample to insure the construction
of permanent, comfortable schoolhouses and to prevent the impositions of
inefficient contractors and builders.
School Districts and Consolidation.—In my preceding biennial reports this
subject has been so fully discussed that I deem it unnecessary to enter into
any full discussion of it again. Much good work has been done in reason-able
consolidation and enlargement of districts. With much benefit to their
school interests, some counties have been entirely redistricted. Hundreds of
unnecessary little districts have been abolished, but in many counties there
are still too many of these little districts. There are still 5,333 white school
districts and 2,298 colored school districts. The average area of the white
school district in the State is 9.2 square miles. The white school districts
might be decreased to half the present number, where streams, swamps,
etc., do not prevent, and the average size might be increased to double the
present area, and still, as a little calculation will show, in a district of
fairly regular size with a schoolhouse near the center, the farthest child would
be within three miles of the house, and a large majority of the children would,
of course, be much nearer. The decrease in the number of school districts
means, of course, an increase in the money for each district, an increase in the
number of children in each school, an increase in the number of schools with
more than one teacher, affording instruction in more advanced branches of
study, a better classification of the children, a reduction in the number of
classes necessary for each teacher, an increase in the time that each teacher
can give to each class, a concentration of the energies of the teacher upon
fewer subjects, a stimulation of the children to greater effort by the greater
competition and greater mental friction of larger numbers.
This work of enlarging the school districts by the consolidation of unnec-essary
small districts or by redistricting townships and counties must, of
course, be carried on with wisdom, discretion, and justice. Every child has a
right to be within reasonable walking distance of some school until conditions
and funds justify provision for transportation, but any healthy child can
better afford to walk two or three miles to get to a good school than to
attend a poor one at his gate. It is wiser and more economical to have one
school taught in one good house with two or three good teachers than to have
two or three little schools in poor little one-room houses, taught by one teacher
with a handful of children, with almost as many classes as children. For
a fuller and more detailed discussion, however, of this subject and of the ex-travagance
and unwisdom of a multiplicity of unnecessary little districts, I
beg to refer you to my preceding biennial reports.
Transportation of Fupils.—It is hoped that in the near future improvement
in roads and rural conditions will warrant consolidation of schools on a larger
scale, and the adoption of transportation of children by wagons and teams to
central schools, which is now in successful operation in many Western States.
This method has already been adopted in a few districts in this State, and the
experiment will be watched with interest.
Better Classification and More Thorough Instruction.—Through the use of
a graded course of study sent out in pamphlet form from my office and the
new registers and new blanks for teachers' reports, some good work has been
done in classifying and grading the rural public schools. Much more remains
still to be done. Upon this subject I beg to (piote from my biennial report of
1902-1904
:
Work to Be Done and How to Do It. 41
"A recent inquiry concerning the course of study and tbe classification of
pupils in the public schools of the State reveals a great lack of uniformity and,
in some counties of the State, a somewhat chaotic condition. I sent to all
County Superintendents blanks for reports of the daily programs and of the
progress made by the various classes. These blanks were sent to the public
school teachers, and the Superintendents were requested to send the best ten to
my office. A careful examination of these and a compilation of their contents
showed that the average number of recitations in the school with one teacher
undertaking to give instruction in all subjects required by law to be taught
in the public schools varied from 35 to 55.
"In order to give instruction in all the subjects the teaching of which is
made mandatory under the law, at least 21 recitations a day will be required.
The legal length of a school day is six hours, hence an average of only
twelve minutes could be allotted to a recitation in any school with only
one teacher. The folly of even expecting thorough and successful instruc-tion
in so many subjects in so many classes by one teacher is apparent with-out
argument. The need for a better classification so as to reduce the classes
to the smallest possible -number, thereby giving the longest possible time to
each class, is also apparent. Owing to the different ages of the children,
ranging from six to twenty-one years, and the different degrees of advance-ment,
about as many classes will be necessary in a school with one teacher
as in a school with two or more teachers, the chief difference being, of course,
in the number of children in a class. Unless some means, therefore, can be
found for increasing the number of schools with two or more teachers and
decreasing the number of schools with only one teacher, I see but little hope
of successful instruction in any of the high school branches or of improv-ing
materially the instruction even in the elementary branches known as the
common school branches. It is apparent that in a well-classified school with
two or three teachers, with few if any more classes than a school with one
teacher, each teacher will have two or three times as much time for each
class, and will be able to concentrate his thought and energies upon fewer
classes and subjects and, consequently, to do more thorough teaching in those
subjects, and that at least one of the teachers would have time for instruc-tion
of the older children in the higher branches. I have been so firmly con-vinced
of the impossibility of thorough instruction by one teacher in more
than the elementary branches, that I have advised in the preface to the
Course of Study that only in exceptional cases should instruction in any
higher branches ever be undertaken in'any school with only one teacher. (The
law now limits instruction in one-teacher schools to the elementary branches.)
"The only means of reducing the number of schools with only one teacher
and getting more schools with two or more teachers and the better classifi-cation,
more thorough instruction and more advanced work so necessary for
the growth and development of our public school system are to be found
in reasonable consolidation and local taxation. By means of consolidation
more teachers and more children can be brought together into one school, and
by means of local taxation more money will be available for the employ-ment
of more teachers at better salaries and for the lengthening of the school
term. In the meantime, through the adoption of the graded course of study
heretofore referred to, and its enforcement in all the public schools, the work
of the public schools can be greatly improved in uniformity, definiteness, thor-oughness
and classification." There has, of course, been marked improvement
42 Work to Be Doiste and How to Do It.
iu classifying and grading the rural public schools since 1904, but there is still
great need for reducing the number of classes and the number of subjects in
the one-teacher school, iu order to secure more thoroughness in the few essen-tials,
and also great need for increasing the number of two-teacher schools.
The Education of the Negro.—As the conditions have not changed since my
last report, and as I have seen no reason to change my views upon the subject
of the education of the negro, I shall repeat here the views expressed in my
preceding biennial report, changing only the figures used in that report so as
to conform to the correct figures for this biennial period.
"It would be easier and m